Royals will never escape institutional racism: Black studies professor

December 1, 2022

Controversial black studies professor says the Royal Family will ‘never escape’ their ‘fundamental problem with institutional racism’ in the wake of Lady Hussey’s remarks

Professor Kehinde Andrews accused the Royal Family of racism amid row
Lady Susan Hussey quit her post after making remarks at Buckingham Palace
She asked black British-born guest at reception where she was from
Prof Andrews has called the Queen ‘number one symbol of white supremacy’

A controversial black studies professor today accused the Royal Family of racism after the late Queen’s chief lady-in-waiting resigned from her post under King Charles amid a race row.

Kehinde Andrews, a professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, claimed The Firm was ‘deeply embedded in institutional racism’, telling ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘By now we should have understood that the British Royal Family has a real problem with racism’.

Lady Susan Hussey, Prince William’s godmother and the late Queen’s chief lady-in-waiting, issued an apology and quit her honorary royal post under the King after Ngozi Fulani, a black guest at a Buckingham Palace reception, said she felt ‘violated’ after being ‘interrogated’ by the royal about what country she came from, despite being born in the UK.

Officials said they were taking the incident ‘extremely seriously’ and had launched an immediate investigation into the ‘unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments’.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are making their first overseas trip since the death of the Queen in September

‘The Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy in the world’

In June last year, Prof Andrews labelled the late Queen ‘the number one symbol of white supremacy in the world’.

He said he did not know ‘why it’s such a big deal’ Oxford University students voted to take down a picture of the Queen from their common room.

During a debate into whether the Queen had been cancelled, Prof Andrews told Good Morning Britain: ‘If we’re honest the Queen doesn’t just represent modern colonialism, the Queen is probably the number one symbol of white supremacy in the entire world.

‘A born to rule elite of this really white family. The head of the commonwealth which is actually the empire.’

‘The British Empire was far worse than the Nazis’

In February last year, Prof Andrews branded the British Empire ‘far worse than the Nazis’ during a controversial debate about Sir Winston Churchill’s legacy.

He said: ‘The British Empire was far worse than the Nazis. They lasted longer and killed many more people.’

On Churchill, he added: ‘There is no debate. His white supremacy is pretty much on record and the question here is why does Churchill still hold the level of popularity that he does? It’s almost like he’s been beatified – a saintly figure beyond reproach.’

‘Churchill was a clear racist’

The academic made headlines in 2018 when he claimed on Good Morning Britain that Churchill was a ‘clear racist’ in a heated debate in which Piers Morgan asked him: ‘Why do you live in a country that you loathe?’

He also compared the UK’s war-time Prime Minister to Nazi leader Hitler for his treatment of Indians when the country endured a famine in 1943.

‘Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory are racist songs’

In 2020, Prof Andrews criticised the singing of Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory at the Last Night of the Proms.

He said: ‘Some of those songs, particularly those two, are racist propaganda. They celebrate the British Empire which killed tens of millions of people.’

Speaking to Good Morning Britain this morning, Prof Andrews said he was ‘not sure why people are still surprised there’s racism in the Royal Family’, citing the fallout from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s acrimonious split from the Windsors and their bombshell Oprah interview in which the Duchess made allegations of racism against The Firm.

The professor, who has sensationally claimed the British Empire was ‘far worse than the Nazis’ and labelled the late Queen ‘the number one symbol of white supremacy in the entire world’, said: ‘You would think after the Meghan Markle debacle, that tour in the Caribbean of Will and Kate, even the fact that – come on, let’s be honest – we have an almost exclusively white family that represents Britain and goes around in the jewels stolen from empire…

‘By now we should have understood that the British Royal Family has a real problem with racism and these things should not surprise us.’

He added: ‘Again, I want to stress, I’m not sure why we should expect it too. This is an institution that is deeply embedded in institutional racism, and I think what this shows you… one person resigning doesn’t do anything because it shows there’s a culture in that place where these kinds of ideas are totally accepted, that she felt perfectly fine to behave in those ways.

‘It’s about the Royal Family as an institution, and unfortunately the Royal Family as an institution has a serious problem, and may have a fundamental problem it can never escape, of institutional racism.’

He also compared the UK’s war-time Prime Minister to Nazi leader Hitler for his treatment of Indians when the country endured a famine in 1943.

The academic has written several books over the past five years including ‘Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century’ and ‘Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement’.

He has also written for publications on both sides of the Atlantic including the Guardian, Washington Post and New Statesman.

He has said the decision to build tributes like the Bomber Command Memorial was like ‘justifying terrorism’.

In August 2019 he appeared on Good Morning Britain to argue that author Enid Blyton was not ‘worthy’ of the honour of a commemorative coin because ‘she was racist her books were racist’.

In 2020, Prof Andrews criticised the singing of Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory at the Last Night of the Proms. He said: ‘Some of those songs, particularly those two, are racist propaganda. They celebrate the British Empire which killed tens of millions of people.’

Writing in the New Statesman about 2018’s Black History Month, he said: ‘If schools want to genuinely engage with black history then they can embed it into their teaching.

‘For example, rather than teaching the industrial revolution as a triumph of British engineering alone, teachers should link it to the enslavement and colonisation of Africa, which was essential to British history.

‘There is also nothing wrong with teaching the history of the rest of the world, which was just as pivotal to the development of Britain.’

Lady Susan Hussey resigned from the household and apologised after making the ‘unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments’ to Ms Fulani, chief executive of Sistah Space, at a royal reception on Tuesday.

Ms Fulani shared a run down of the conversation, which took place at a major gathering hosted by the Queen Consort to highlight violence against women and girls, on social media, describing it as a ‘violation’ and saying the experience will ‘never leave me’.

‘This is bigger than one individual. It’s institutional racism,’ she later told The Independent.

She said the incident showed ‘nothing has changed’, adding: ‘There are so many things to consider before you can even react to the pain of racism. Can you imagine? I’m just processing the incident.’

Ms Fulani seen at a reception at Buckingham Palace

Charity founder at centre of Palace race row previously said ‘Meghan is a survivor of domestic violence from her in-laws’ and said she admired Duchess for ‘speaking out’

Ngozi Fulani, director of the east London charity Sistah Space, was asked by Queen Consort Camilla’s aide Lady Susan Hussey ‘what part of Africa are you from?’ – despite having been born and raised in Britain.

Ms Fulani, whose charity works with women with African and Caribbean heritage who have suffered violence at home, has previously accused the Royal Family of ‘domestic violence’ against Meghan Markle.

She made the claim in March 2021, just after Piers Morgan resigned from Good Morning Britain after saying he did not believe Meghan’s claims about her requests for mental health treatment being refused by palace officials.

Ms Fulani tweeted: ‘Our charity supports black women DV survivors. I can’t stay silent about this. I admire Meghan for speaking out. According to clear definition, it seems Meghan is a survivor of DV from her in-laws. Ps, I’m glad hypocrite Piers left ITV.’

The campaigner, who has a BA in African Studies at SOAS, University of London, has also worked as a specialist advocate for domestic violence victims.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2020, she suggested black women were not reporting their abusers because they were worried about them being killed by police.

‘Women want the abuse to stop but we know what happens to black men in police custody,’ she said. ‘These women do not want to risk their abusers being hurt or murdered.’

In an online profile, Ms Fulani described how she grew up in Kilburn, north London, as one of seven children as the ‘only black family on our road’.

Her mother worked for London Transport before training as a nurse, while her father was a railway worker before providing sound systems to parties in the evening.

Describing the racism they experienced, Ms Fulani said: ‘Our lives were about him moving around, moving around playing music at house parties, because we were not allowed in main venues.

‘Black people were not allowed. No dogs, No Blacks, No Irish. We had to cram people in rooms at house parties, and we were very aware from the get-go that even though we were born here, we were not welcome.’

She also described the discrimination black people faced in wider society, including being called ‘w***’ and facing violence at the hands of the police.

‘Police beating black people was a national sport,’ she wrote. ‘Police will not talk about this. I don’t know anyone over the age of fifty who has siblings or parents who hasn’t experienced police brutality.

‘Groups of police would go out and beat black people to hell. My brothers came home from school with their faces swollen. People here held contempt for us, and they still do.’

Ms Fulani said her ‘life changed’ when she joined an African dance group as a teenager.

‘To hear Africans with strong accents, learn about the food and the drumming touched my heart and took me to a place I had never been,’ she wrote.

‘It was everything for me and I had never felt so free as when I was listening to those drums. It was all so beautiful, the clothes, the beads, the cowrie shells, and the stories.’

Concluding the piece, she added: ‘Nothing has changed. It’s just different. The racism is just as intense, the hate is still there. I keep my truth.’

She called on the royal household to implement cultural competency and anti-racism training, which Sistah Space delivers.

The Palace moved swiftly to respond to Ms Fulani’s tweets on Wednesday morning, saying it took the incident ‘extremely seriously’ and had investigated immediately.

The King, who acceded to the throne less than three months ago, and Camilla have been made aware of the situation, the Palace said.

But former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said: ‘Charles and William’s problem is that the focus is already shifting from the actions of one woman to broader questions about whether Buckingham Palace is institutionally racist.’

William is understood to agree it was right for his godmother Lady Susan, who served as Elizabeth II’s lady in waiting for more than 60 years, to resign.

A Kensington Palace spokesman told reporters in the US ahead of the Waleses’ trip to Boston: ‘Racism has no place in our society.

‘The comments were unacceptable, and it is right that the individual has stepped aside with immediate effect.’

The Kensington Palace spokesman said he spoke to William before he boarded his commercial flight to the US with the Princess of Wales, with the couple due to arrive at lunchtime local time on Wednesday for their first overseas visit since the Queen’s death.

Ms Fulani named the member of the palace household as Lady SH, but the Palace refused to confirm her name.

Lady Susan, 83, who was invited to and on duty at the reception, has stepped down from her honorary role as one of three Ladies of the Household, to which she was newly appointed to help the King at formal occasions.

Ms Fulani said she was challenged when she said her charity was based in Hackney, with ‘Lady SH’ saying: ‘No, what part of Africa are YOU from?’

The Palace said in a statement: ‘In this instance, unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments have been made. We have reached out to Ngozi Fulani on this matter, and are inviting her to discuss all elements of her experience in person if she wishes.

‘In the meantime, the individual concerned would like to express her profound apologies for the hurt caused and has stepped aside from her honorary role with immediate effect.

‘All members of the Household are being reminded of the diversity and inclusivity policies which they are required to uphold at all times.’

Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, who was next to Ms Fulani and witnessed the exchange, told PA they were treated like ‘trespassers’.

Ms Reid said: ‘We really felt ‘oh, OK, we’re being treated almost like trespassers in this place. We’re not being treated as if we belong, we’re not being embraced as if we are British’.’

She described the conversation as ‘grim’ and like an ‘interrogation’, adding: ‘She was really persistent. She didn’t take Ngozi’s answers at face value.’

Ms Fulani wrote that the encounter, which happened 10 minutes after she arrived in the Palace’s Picture Gallery, included the remarks: ”Where are you from?’

‘Me: ‘Here, UK’. ‘No, but what nationality are you?’ Me: ‘I am born here and am British.’ ‘No, but where do you really come from, where do your people come from?’ Me: ‘My people, lady, what is this?’

”Oh, I can see I am going to have a challenge getting you to say where you’re from.”

Ms Fulani, who founded Sistah Space in 2015 to provide specialist support for African and Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse, added: ‘Mixed feelings about yesterday’s visit to Buckingham Palace.

’10 mins after arriving, a member of staff, Lady SH, approached me, moved my hair to see my name badge. The conversation below took place. The rest of the event is a blur.’

She thanked Ms Reid, the first person of colour to lead a national political party in British history, and Safe Lives chief executive Suzanne Jacob for their support on the day.

Responding to messages of support, Ms Fulani wrote: ‘Standing there in a room packed with people while this violation was taking place was so strange, especially as the event was about violence against women.

‘That feeling of not knowing what to do, will NEVER leave me. Almost alone in a room full of advocates.’

She said it was a ‘struggle to stay in a space where you were violated’.

Ms Fulani outlined her distress at not being able to report the incident, saying she felt she could not tell Camilla.

‘There was nobody to report it to. I could’nt (sic) report it to the Queen Consort, plus it was such a shock to me and the other 2 women, that we were stunned to temporary silence,’ she wrote.

‘I just stood at the edge of the room, smiled & engaged briefly with who spoke to me until I could leave.’

The matter raises serious concerns for the Palace, where an unnamed royal was accused last year by the Duchess of Sussex of racism against her unborn son Archie.

Meghan, the first mixed race person to marry a senior royal for centuries, said during her Oprah interview that a royal – not the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh – expressed concerns with Harry about how dark Archie’s skin tone might be before he was born.

The Queen issued a statement saying that the issues raised would be dealt with privately as a family, but that ‘some recollections may vary’.

The Palace is understood to have reached out to Ms Fulani through one of the organisations with which she is aligned, but is yet to hear back, and hopes to work with her when she is ready, and to express apologies in person.

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