Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, are trying to enjoy a tour of the US but a looming problem just won’t go away, writes Daniela Elser. Photo / AP
OPINION:
When planning William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales’ three-day excursion to Boston this week, there are only so many variables even the most efficient, spreadsheet-wielding private secretary could plan for: bad weather, emergency loo stops, hair disasters, and someone remembering those uncomfortable former links between the city and the IRA.
What no one had imagined was that a threat to derail the meticulously planned trip would come via an 83-year-old royal insider and the prince’s own godmother.
Here we go again people. Another day, another royal racism row. But this time? It should be the Waleses who take the lead.
So, this all began late on Wednesday night, NZST, as the Waleses were somewhere over the Atlantic, flying to Boston for the Earthshot Prize, when domestic abuse campaigner Ngozi Fulani took to Twitter. Fulani had been one of the attendees of a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Camilla this week focused on domestic violence and she revealed a deeply shocking exchange with a member of the royal household who had asked her where she “really came from.”
Mandu Reid, head of the Women’s Equality Party, and who saw and heard the conversation described it to the Washington Post as like “an interrogation”.
“It was question after question … it wasn’t fleeting, it was several minutes,” Reid has said. “It got more and more uncomfortable for us. Was she going to ask for ID next? It really felt like that almost.”
The woman was soon named as Lady Susan Hussey, one of Queen Elizabeth’s longest serving ladies-in-waiting and who only last week was named as a “Lady of the Household”, both honourary, unpaid roles. (Interestingly, it was Lady Susan who Her Majesty “gave” to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex before her wedding to help her learn the royal ropes.)
Buckingham Palace moved with unusual velocity after Fulani’s post, with Lady Susan “resigning” within hours.
By the time William and Kate’s seats were in the upright position and their tray tables stowed while landing on the drizzly US east coast, Team Wales was ready, putting out a statement calling Lady Susan’s comments “unacceptable” and saying “it is right that the individual has stepped aside with immediate effect.”
Anyone else have a bad case of deja vu?
For the third time in less than two years, the royal family is facing accusations of racism, which they continue to handle by using up all the good Palace stationery and putting out statements.
So I’m here to say: William and Kate, this one is going to come down to you. It’s time to step up.
Technically, King Charles, as the boss, should be taking charge here and getting out his famous leaky fountain pen to try and come up with a plan to address the continuing question of racism and the royal family, but unfortunately I don’t particularly rate the chances of this happening.
The Palace’s track record when it comes to facing claims of racism is entirely lacking.
Back in March 2021, when Meghan, Duchess of Sussex told Oprah Winfrey that there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark” the skin of her unborn baby might be, Queen Elizabeth waited nearly two full days to put out, you guessed it, a statement with the immediately iconic line, “recollections may vary.”
Days later, William broke ranks and told a gaggle of waiting journalists at an engagement at an East London school, “We’re very much not a racist family.”
Then in the post-Oprah aftermath, there were reports that the Palace was planning to hire a diversity czar, prompting plenty of laudatory headlines. What has happened since then? Was this person hired? Nothing has ever been heard on the matters since then.
Then came the Waleses’ tour of the Caribbean in March this year which started with protests over land rights and saw photos of the couple shaking hands with people of colour through a wire fence. The optics were nothing short of abysmal.
The fact they went ahead with a planned engagement later that week where they viewed Jamaican troops from the back of a Land Rover, while all done up like two extras from an EM Forster novel, was frankly tone deaf.
As they headed back to the UK, William put out an unusual statement saying “this tour has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future” and that “In Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, that future is for the people to decide upon.”
And so early Thursday, there the royal duo and their team was, on another international flight, having to come up with another official comment about racism.
Dear god. Enough already. How many more such incidents will it take for someone to twig that putting out statements full of firm words is not enough? It’s like trying to repair holes in the Hoover Dam with Frozen-themed child-size Band-Aids.
The royal family simply cannot keep dodging not only Britain’s colonial past but their direct connection to slavery.
It was King Charles II’s brother James, Duke of York, who founded the Royal African Company in the 17th century, which would transport between 90,000 and 100,000 enslaved men, women and children, more “than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade,” according to the Smithsonian.
Some of those enslaved people were branded on their chests with “DY” for the Duke of York and others “RAC”. Just let that sink in for a minute.
Later, slave trader Edward Colston gave King William III shares in the RAC and later that year he purchased the property on which now stands Kensington Palace.
Slavery might have ended nearly two centuries ago but that does not mean that the Palace can brush their hands here and say “all in the past chums! Anyone for a Horlicks?”
None of this is obviously the present royal family’s fault, however I believe they have a moral responsibility to more forthrightly acknowledge and confront the sins of the past.
The Palace’s piecemeal approach to addressing the question of racism and colonialism is clearly not working and it is time for the Prince and Princess of Wales to take the reins (or reigns?) and show some leadership.
None of this is going away.
Only last week, the Telegraph reported that Barbados wants to claim damages from the descendants of the nation’s biggest slave owner in the 17th century, who still own property there.
David Comissiong, Barbados’s prime minister Mia Mottley’s closest advisor on slave reparations, told the paper: “I think ultimately the British royal family will have to answer a reparations claim.”
William has taken some steps on this front. During that controversial Caribbean tour he expressed his “profound sorrow” over the slave trade, echoing the words said by his father last year. Then, in June, on Windrush Day he gave a speech saying that “discrimination remains an all too familiar experience for black men and women in Britain in 2022.”
So many words. So many statements and speeches. It’s time for action here for god’s sake.
There has to be some sort of mid-point between public self-flagellation for the sins of the fathers and hands-over-their-ears deafness and refusal to engage.
The prince and princess have shown impressive creativity and ambition when it comes to tackling their personal causes (climate change and early years interventions respectively) so why can’t they apply that degree of boldness to this situation?
For example, start a conversation by hosting roundtables about the monarchy’s links to slavery. It might be deeply uncomfortable but after the racial reckoning of recent years with #BlackLivesMatter, inaction and silence are simply not options if they want this throne business to keep chugging along.
Or, the couple could launch a nationwide initiative addressing racism in modern Britain and the insidious ways that it still exists.
Or, god knows what their team of smarty pants advisors and aides could come up with if asked to.
The one thing that the royal family simply cannot do is to continue to bury their heads in the sand and hope that the conversations about racism and the royal family are going to mysteriously disappear.
So it comes down to this: Charles and Camilla seem unlikely, both practically and generationally, to really do much beyond more of those blasted statements. Therefore, William and Kate, you’re up.
The time for carefully crafted messages is over.