Buckingham Palace says it’s prepared to “work with” the Black charity boss who was asked where in Africa she was from by a royal aide, The Independent understands.
Ngozi Fulani, founder of the charity Sistah Space, expressed her shock at the treatment she endured from the late Queen’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, during a palace event on Tuesday.
Lady Hussey, Prince William’s 83-year-old godmother, resigned from the household and apologised after she repeatedly challenged Ms Fulani when she said was British and touched her hair without consent at the Queen Consort Camilla’s reception highlighting violence against women and girls.
Buckingham Palace has now “spoken directly to” Ms Fulani and suggested it was willing to “work with her” after she offered to deliver anti-racism training.
A palace source said: “We very much hope that we can work with her when she is ready, and express apologies in person.”
Ms Fulani wants the royal household to implement anti-racism training of the kind that earned her an invitation to the palace in the first place.
Sistah Space delivers cultural competency and anti-racism training to organisations such as the Met Police, and is behind the campaign to introduce Valerie’s Law, which would make such training compulsory for police forces and related bodies, in a bid to tackle barriers to Black victims of domestic abuse accessing help.
Questions around the palace’s diversity policies continue to mount amid the fall-out from the incident, which Ms Fulani said amounted to “institutional racism”.
Campaigners are also lobbying for an independent review at the palace.
“The monarchy’s history is steeped in racism, the current family have done far too little to stamp it out and catch up with the rest of society on tackling these appalling attitudes,” Graham Smith, CEO of anti-monarchy group, Republic, said.
“For once we need to see clear and unequivocal openness and honesty from the palace, an admission of past failings and an independent review of where the fault lies.”
In a statement following Lady Hussey’s comments, the palace said “all members of the household are being reminded of the strict diversity and inclusivity policies which they are required to uphold at all times”.
However, there are no details of such policies on Buckingham Palace’s website where it claims to “champion diversity” within the two paragraphs on its ‘diversity and inclusion’ page.
Royal households are exempt from the Equality Act, introduced in 2010, which protects people from discrimination within the workplace and across wider society.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment further or share details of its diversity policies.
The House of Windsor was rocked last March after Prince Harry and Meghan claimed racism drove them away from the Royal family.
The Sussexes alleged in their Oprah Winfrey interview that a member of the family – not the late Queen nor Prince Philip – made a racist comment about their son.
Winfrey was left opened-mouthed when the duchess – the first mixed-race member of the modern monarchy – said a fellow royal was worried about how dark their son Archie’s skin tone might be before he was born.
The royal family reportedly considered appointing a diversity tsar under new plans to modernise the monarchy after these allegations surfaced. However, the idea was scrapped three months later for unknown reasons.
