The Lady Hussey racism thing

[Tiiiiiiiiiiired]

I am really conflicted about this.

If went to live in Japan (I did live there for 3 years several years ago) I would be expected to be asked about where I'm from because I don't look Japanese (and in fact I was asked many times! I didn't mind at all, it was my choice to be in Japan and I knew I didn't look japanese). If I chose to stay in that country and have children, I'd expect my children would be asked the same, and their children and that although they would be Japanese by birth, I would hope they would be happy to talk about their heritage and where they are from and not mind being asked why they don't look Japanese and what the history is. I wouldnt think it racist and wouldn't want such questions to be stopped because we only learn from others, and about others, by talking and feeling safe to ask questions.

So why in the UK does everyone have to be sooo careful with what they say? This woman has a non English name, was wearing some non western clothing, as was asked about her heritage. Why is this abuse?

We need to stop being so sensitive and allow dialogue.

It wasn’t though, was it?

What was also shocking this morning was repeated attempts by Times Radio to excuse Hussey's behaviour and repeatedly throwing subtle shade at Ngozi's account of things 🙄

’Over on Gransnet the consensus also seems to be that her racism should be excused by her age.’

I looked earlier and there are a handful of prolific posters excusing her but many more saying that she was racist.

This was a gathering in relation to charities supporting women and girls who are victims of abuse. To me, any form of small talk that doesn't start with, "tell me about your work in this area" is wide of the mark.

This! And Fulani answered initially, "Sistah Space". All Hussey needed to do was follow up with "Tell me about your work" or "Is it based in London?" and there you go. Touching her hair as though she were an object, the tireless digging into Fulani's heritage - it's awful.

I don't know. Why do you think she asked her?

I totally agree with this @mynameiscalypso . It came across to me as if Lady Hussey didn’t accept Ngozi Fulani’s answers so she kept on probing her. I think that kind of tactic is quite rude generally, and given the type of questions Lady Hussey was asking, I think it was also racist.

I find it strange, because you would think LH is quite socially comfortable and adept at finding appropriate conversation topics to discuss with strangers, as her job involves making small talk for hours on end with lots of different people (like the royals do). However, LH’s of topic in this conversation, and the doggedness with which she questioned Ngozi Fulani, was quite shocking.

Well, yy because most of the posters on here are saying SH was wrong too.
But certain posters are determined to create a straw man that says otherwise.

Completely agree!

Yes my mistake about her role there.

@knittingaddict On that basis, your post also could be classed as ageist. You mention your elderly parents and their outdated views. That's exactly the same point I was making. When people over a certain age were born, I'm talking people maybe 80+, since you asked. The world was a different place. A much worse place in my opinion, particularly if you were, like me, not your usual straight, white, British member of the public. The world and its views have changed thankfully and eventually people who grew up in that era will no longer exist. Age does matter. I, for one, have been brought up to respect my elders and also to have compassion for other people. This lady is 85, has recently lost a very close friend of many years and, whilst I totally disagree with what she said, I would have just walked away from her or told her to her face that I felt her questioning was racist. I would have let it go based on her age. I would not have humiliated her publicly.

Would you ask the question if someone was white with a London accent though? If you wouldn’t, why not? If you would ask it because the person is black, then that just has to be racist.

It wasn’t a transcript!. It was the recollection of a conversation by someone who claims to have been traumatised by it. Even with the best will in the world, if you have been traumatised by a conversation there is no way that your recollection of the conversation would not be coloured by that.

Just looking at the transcript again and marvelling at how sly Hussey is.

Note when Ms Fulani says ‘my parents came here in the 50s’, Hussey immediate thought of the Windrush generation and said ‘Oh I knew we’d get there in the end, you’re Caribbean!’

Hussey knew exactly what she was doing.

Also, there was such poignant pathos in Ms Fulani’s answer to the question about Africa. How heartbreaking to have to say ‘they didn’t leave any records’. How did that not stop Hussey in her tracks? How shameless and brazen she is.

SH: No, what part of Africa are YOU from?
Me: I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records.

………………………………………………………..

Lady SH: Where are you from?
Me: Sistah Space.
SH: No, where do you come from?
Me: We’re based in Hackney.
SH: No, what part of Africa are YOU from?
Me: I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records.
SH: Well, you must know where you’re from, I spent time in France. Where are you from?
Me: Here, UK
SH: NO, but what Nationality are you?
Me: I am born here and am British.
SH: No, but where do you really come from, where do your people come from?
Me: ‘My people’, lady, what is this?
SH: Oh I can see I am going to have a challenge getting you to say where you’re from. When did you first come here?
Me: Lady! I am a British national, my parents came here in the 50s when …
SH: Oh, I knew we’d get there in the end, you’re Caribbean!
Me: No Lady, I am of African heritage, Caribbean descent and British nationality.
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Oh please, using emotive language like "aggressor" to try to dull down what she did. Elderly or not, it's no bloody excuse.
She didn't misunderstand, she didn't get the answer she wanted and refused to believe that a black person wasn't born somewhere in Africa - that it was impossible she could be British, born and raised in the UK.

I think it was the way it was done. It was out of context and therefore incredibly tactless given the nature of the event. It undermined the idea that someone could be black British. If it had been an activism event explicitly dealing with, say, slavery and reparations, where people had been openly and obviously talking about race and ethnicity with reference to where different groups of people had originated from historically before being transported, then there might have been some sort of conceivable way of seeing this as a reasonable enquiry. As it happens, five minutes of this stuff completely out of context was plain and simple sub-radar 1950s racism vaguely disguised as small talk, and I am pleased to see that the culprit has resigned. What on earth was she thinking? Or maybe she just isn't very bright.

Just to flip this around, imagine if you or I had spent five minutes at a domestic violence event grilling Hussey and impugning that she was born illegitimate or related to Nazis or something like that, which had the effect of putting her on the back foot and feeling she wanted to escape at an event where her public service was supposed to be acknowledged and celebrated. It would have been completely unacceptable, just in the way that banging on about the Caribbean was.

@stuntbubbles personally I've never visited the Royal household so I can't accuse them of being racist. However some people believe everything the press print.There are two sides to every story and we have only heard one side.
We are hearing one womans side of what was asked and she has gone straight to the press TV interviews etc. You have to bare in mind that some people are easily offended and some people look for offence in everything. It would be interesting to hear the story from the other side. See how it plays out the truth comes out in the end.

Absolutely

The persistence of Lady SH's questioning is utterly bizarre... why was she so bloody intent on 'exposing' NF's heritage? I thought these sort of events were about making polite conversation ... Why ddin't she just drop it and move on??

To me it really reads like someone who's stuck in the colonial era AND who's losing their marbles. It's the only piece of conversation they have.

As an aside, I had a similarly weird conversation with Prince Phillip years ago (2001, I think) when he and the Queen visited my workplace. They went about meeting and greeting staff. When I opened my mouth it was clear I'm from a Commonwealth country (though I'm white).

Prince P asked: "Where are you from?" I gave the name of the town where I lived at the time. He asked again: "Where are you originally from? Are you from X (my country of birth)?" and I answered yes. He blurted out: "You lot are everywhere, aren't you!" I just smiled and nodded.

The 'ethnic regalia' got me too. 🤣 I was brought up in an African country and I never saw anyone wearing anything like this lady. She looks awesome but not Nigerian, Congolese, Sudanese, Ghanaian or even 'Carribbean'.

Ps. Note the offending hair covering name badge which needed to be moved by Susan Hussey. Can you imagine going up to anyone you'd never met before at a conference and moving their hair to see their name? 😱

Since when was age an excuse for being a bigot?

She's 83. She's lived through the time of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in america, Mandela and aparteid and I would hope would have some awareness of who Stephen Lawrence was.

Fuck off with that as an excuse.

Her questioning was clumsy and perhaps she should have taken the hint that she wasn't going to get the answer to the question she was trying to ask, but there's nothing racist about wanting to know where the family of a black person originates from. It's just curiosity.

Everybody screams the race card at the smallest thing these days. This is the problem. People need to stop being offended over nothing.

Indeed. And NF wasn't asked about her heritage either. She was asked where she was from. Which she answered directly.

Probably because in this country many white British people see black or brown skin as curious and not the ‘norm’ and think they have the right to ask for an explanation of why someone’s skin looks that way as their very first interaction with that person, often claiming to be ‘just interested’ in people’s heritage but, funnily enough, never being ‘just interested’ in immediately grilling other white people about their backgrounds and family ancestry in the same way.

She knew nothing about Fulani’s organisation or who they work with when she began her questioning so it seems unlikely that had anything to do with her questions.

An interesting perspective. Funny, on the FWR boards a retelling of an event regarding a trans issue on Twitter seems to always be accepted as fact.

But a black woman talking of her experience of racism is just 'one side of the story'.

I’m not sure I really understand the age excuse for racism though, especially in LH’s situation.

The age excuse seems to suggest that people never learn how to accept other views if they’re of a certain age and they should be cut quite a bit of slack. In LH’s case, yes she is elderly, but given the amount of people she mixes with every day and the education she’s had, you would think she would have a basic level of awareness of what is socially acceptable to say (ie not racist, not offensive) and what’s not acceptable.

I’m absolutely not suggesting we should go in all guns blazing to confront these people for their views. I do think though that it’s a bit of an insult to their intelligence if we just accept these people will never change.

I think it’s everyone’s responsibility to have open conversations around difficult and sensitive topics (e.g. racism, sexism, homophobia) so we can help each other understand how to talk about these topics in a respectful way. That doesn’t mean shouting each other down and policing and criticising each other for saying the wrong thing, but instead gently but firmly pointing out how certain words are not really appropriate to use, because of their history and how they make people feel, and other words would be better.