Two years ago when I dared to dream of real change, post-George Floyd, a wise old friend put me straight.
“This is just a window,” she warned me. “Not a new beginning.” Events since then have totally vindicated her.
If you run a business with zero racial diversity in your senior leadership team, she was talking about you.
If you actually have that diversity but your work culture is still the same then you too are part of the problem (one outlet I know held a Diversity & Inclusion awards night and didn’t invite the only Black member on their team).
And if you think Ngozi Fulani is the problem rather than Lady Susan Hussey, you are too.
In fact, Ngozi’s treatment over the past few weeks has been one of the most damning examples of the UK’s delusion around race I can remember – and there have been many.
Ngozi is the founder of the domestic and sexual abuse charity Sistah Space.
First things first. The charity is not anti-white. It is run for women of African and Caribbean heritage who have been failed by the police.
There’s a massive, heartbreaking difference. For example, Valerie Forde and her little girl Jah-zara were hacked to death with a machete, a screwdriver and a hammer, by Valerie’s former partner, Roland McKoy in 2014.
An Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation found she and Jah-zara had been ignored by a string of people who could have saved their lives.
Sistah Space has been fighting for Valerie’s Law, legislation to make race training for police and other agencies compulsory.
But, having interviewed Sistah Space employees myself, I know that they wouldn’t turn away ANY woman in danger.
So if one other woman or girl is hurt or killed as a result of the disgusting, ongoing smear campaign designed to discredit British-born Ngozi, a lot of people will have blood on their hands.
Sistah Space has been forced to shut down for the foreseeable future because of threats to the safety of Ngozi and her staff after she revealed the offensive remarks from Lady Hussey, Prince William’s godmother, last month.
The late Queen’s lady-in-waiting had repeatedly asked where she was “really” from at a Buckingham Palace event. The question is one Black and Asian people are wearily used to. Along with being framed as the aggressor when they dare to report that kind of offence.
Weird, middle-aged men have started popping up on Twitter claiming to know “for a fact” stuff about Ngozi that they simply cannot prove.
Clear, evidence-based examples of racism have been turned into morning panel-show fodder asking questions (“is Britain really racist”) that it already knows the answer to. Same as it ever was.
Reprehensible – and this part is difficult but important to point out – Black, articulate contrarians are accepting money from right-wing outlets to deride and invalidate Ngozi.
It’s an old tactic with the financial incentive too good – for them – to turn down. It empowers xenophobes who believe themselves not to be prejudiced to say: ‘If so and so Black person doesn’t think it is racist, why do you?’ The idea that the dial has shifted is fantasy.
Right now, to be Black, mixed-race or Asian in this society is to do what you can to make it work.
The UK believes itself to be progressive but in just a single week it has shown itself to be soaked in delusion.
