Why Southall Black Sisters made the difficult decision not to attend the Palace’s domestic violence event

Regarding the incident between SH & NF; 2 days ago on my Facebook feed I noticed one much older fb friend sharing a petition that is in support of SH.
She wrote that Ms Fulani is trying to 'discredit the white race and destroy our heritage'.... I just looked back through her timeline in case I'd been horribly mistaken and found another of her posts supporting Nigel Farage's view that Ms Fulani planned the whole thing 'and he's just as good as Enoch Powell'.
I feel quite upset as she's been an fb friend for several years through a hobby group.
Her mum died slowly of Alzheimer's last year and I was supportive.

I have an ethnically diverse family some of whom have suffered racial abuse & attacks. I feel strongly that it is important to be anti racist. But where to even start here.
I could delete her as a friend but I'd like to try to educate her if I can.
Is it worth trying when someone holds a lifetime worth of ultra right clearly white supremacist type views?
2 men (again much older) on my fb feed also referred to this incident and I was able to stand up for Ms Fulani successfully. I think I'm finding it hard to confront this individual as most of her other posts reference her grief.

Someone British, born and raised, might have a name from their heritage.

Everyone British, born and raised, DOES have a name from their heritage.

Everyone in the entire world has a name from their heritage. We have done for all of time. We all have ancestors and heritage and much of the world is named for it and for them.

I think if you are at a venue which exists entirely for the purpose of ancestry and heritage, one that has a 1000 years of ancestry and heritage behind it, you surely knowingly entered a place where ancestry and heritage were respected. It's the purpose of the place, and you might find people a little confused when
enquiries about ancestors and heritage are subsequently described as violence.

I don't think a confident discussion can be held in the current atmosphere. People have withdrawn from it, we don't know what the right tone is.

Well said.

Good on Southall Black Sisters, a truly inspiring charity. They do so much good work round here.
Women of principle, I can see why they made the decision not to attend.
Respect to them

@hepwo it's possible to discuss it. Look, we're discussing it.

You know what I meant about not making assumptions based on a person's skin colour, name and choice of dress. We all do, because we all know it's racist. The questioning wasn't about heritage and ancestry. It was persistent questioning denying that NF was British. Based on assumptions about her name, dress and skin colour. Despite NF actually stating that she was born in Britain and was British.

Oh, and I think I'm adding to the off topic discussion now, so should probably not comment further.

I think it was a principled decision and I follow their reasoning

they wouldn't get to speak, so this event wouldn't let them spread any mass message

they are critical of 'the establishment' and attending this event could have looked hypocritical and lending a veneer of respectability to institutions they don't respect

I get it. although I'd argue it would have allowed for networking and influencing, and frankly I wouldn't turn down an opportunity to see the inside of buckingham palace. it's a balance act of principles and pragmatism, isn't it?

Everyone British, born and raised, DOES have a name from their heritage.

it's the old story isn't it?

you have an identity that influences your behaviour

I don't have an identity, I'm just me, and completely impartial

I did think it was a bit insensitive coming from someone who runs a DV charity. It's not quite like a broken nose and a few busted ribs really.

I assumed the people saying it was a put up job were referring to the rumours that Ngozi was covertly recording the visit.

LH job was to find out something about the guests in order to introduce them to Camilla. NF, an anti-royalist, was brought along by an invitee, representing a charity that served people of Caribbean and African heritage, she was black wearing African inspired clothing and had an African name. It is not unreasonable to ask if there is a personal link with the demographic she served. If it was someone in polish costume, with a polish name representing a charity serving people from Poland then I would expect the same questions. She knew what was being asked and refused to answer by disingenuously claiming not to understand the question. In a normal conversation yes you might move on, and LH should have, but when you have a specific role to gathering information about attendees then you may persist. Touching her hair was rude though.

I read somewhere that there were guests from a couple of African nations which LH would have known and basically did it end up as a massive fuck up from assumptions she may have made? I find it odd that having been in such a post for so long that any previous incidents would not have noted. Its doesn't excuse the moving of the hair though.

Good on them for sticking with their principles. It's such a delicate balancing act and I think it's sensible to have explained the reasoning to it so that people can see why they have made that choice even if they don't agree with it.

It's interesting hearing some of the comments here on the Sistah Space incident. Personally I'm white but have an unusual surname that clearly isn't English so regularly get people making small talk about my heritage. It's never bothered me - I just say I don't know much because of xyz but best guess is this and usually ask them about theirs. For me it's just small talk and showing an interest in one of the key things that shapes us as people. Yet again we all have different experiences that inform the things that we consider ok.

Shelefttheweb
Sistah Space have not come out of this as well as they hoped. It looked like a put up job. I can see why they might not want to align themselves with them

Spoken like a true 'Feminist'🙄

Or perhaps your brand of Feminism defaults to othering Black Women.

Ngozi was asked a question. She answered it. Presumptuous White liberals who boorishly think theyve a right to decide and analyse her answer, deeming her answer to SH as not detailed enough, are just doubling down on racism.

If you ask someone where they're from, they tell you and you then harass for detailed information then you are being a rude, racist pest. Ngozi was there to talk about Sistah Space, THAT should have been the priority, not harassing her about where she's from. & so what if she's an anti-Royalist, do you think everyone there loved the Royals?

All of this shrouding the good work that Sistah Space does, AND the reason why it was set up.

'Black Women Are Women' needs to become a saying around here, as too many people are divisively aiming to display that only White Women matter. I won't discredit any woman working with women suffering domestic violence and thats whatever nation the women are. I don't care.

It's 2022 yet look at the state of some views on MN.

& She wasn't wearing African inspired clothing/traditional costume. Lies. But even if she was - so?

It's so great to be told how to do Feminism.

All of this.

Even leaving aside the racism aspect, LH is not somebody who has spent their life on a remote hill farm or tiny island. Her late husband was chairman of the BBC, she will have been to countless social events with the great and the good and learned how to speak to people from all sorts of backgrounds.

It's hardly advanced-level social skills to know that if you ask someone a question about themselves and they give an evasive or blocking answer, that you then assume that your question is unwelcome for whatever reason and you back off and change the topic.

And yet she didn't apply that awareness of basic social norms when she was speaking to a woman of colour. Funny that.

I think you lost your way to the other Feminism board OP.
Especially as, in a thread on this in Aibu, mn was roundly criticised as being not just racist, but transphobic (and so, obviously, right-wing).
And you might not realise it, but this is the fountain head of the supposed transphobia.

LH was told, which was relevant to the work, that NF was from Hackney and Sistah Space was a service set up to provide a service to women in Hackney.

Now you are being disingenuous. NF does not provide a service to ‘women in Hackney’ - she asks them where their heritage is and access to her charity’s services is based on that. If she was providing a service to all women in Hackney then I would have agreed the question was racist but she doesn’t and the question establishes a personal link to the group her charity is serving so indicates a deeper knowledge of that community and the problems faced by it that may require a community-specific service.

It's hardly advanced-level social skills to know that if you ask someone a question about themselves and they give an evasive or blocking answer, that you then assume that your question is unwelcome for whatever reason and you back off and change the topic.

So you recognise she was giving evasive, blocking answers.

My feminism includes LH whose punishment was totally disproportionate to her ‘crime’.

circumferences
Well I don't know.
If you're someone who's born in London, your parents are from the Bahamas but you dress like you're from Kenya and give yourself an African name despite not being of African heritage, I don't know how you can take the position that people asking about your family background is "racist".

Well if you don't know, you should.

There are numbers of Caribbean people who change their names, particularly surnames, because they don't want to carry a slavemaster's surname.

Headley was a slavemaster in Barbados.

'Where are you from?' persistently asked can be triggering when you dont really know because your ancestors were stripped of their names and traditions.
I've seen it all now tho - people opining on Caribbeans not being of African heritage and having no right to wear African attire.

It smacks of lack of awareness and not knowing anything whatsoever about the cultures being spoken of, but opining anyway.

Ngozi's name amd clothing are no justification for her being heckled. A person's outright nosey rudeness doesn't have to be pandered to either. I'm glad it wasn't, and that RF made the right decision

@Shelefttheweb feminism is never about supporting racist women to be racist. There has been no punishment of the woman in question - she resigned, she's not been sacked or convicted of a crime or sanctioned. If you are referring to the media coverage, well that's pretty obviously going to happen if you behave in this way. Unless you think that NF should have kept it quiet and not discussed what happened?

again - why is this even on here?
It has been shown in previous threads that many posters supporting the OP denigrate this board for being transphobic and the post has nothing to do with sex and gender issues.
plus, it's fucking boring, these threads are everywhere. Can we have a board for Boring for England about racism please.

If a long serving member of staff serving the royal family with no known history of problematic behaviour, resigns over a matter it would not be too out there to wonder if she was asked to resign, or if the position would have been made untenable one way or another. The prince of wales criticised her behaviour in public - by royal family standards that's a strong reaction.

I roundly disapprove of what she did, but posters saying that the punishment does not fit the crime have touched on something in me that I agree with.

I hadn’t considered the reasons Ngozi Fulani may have had for changing her name. In hindsight it’s reasonably obvious though

I’m intrigued that some posters think the name you choose and the clothes you wear make it OK for someone whose job (ironically) is to make others feel welcome in an environment that may feel strange to them, to be downright bloody rude to you

They are pathetic fools who are jumping on the bandwagon
Another woke story about nothing