As Late Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting Resigns, What Other Racism Claims Have Plagued British Royals?
Royal Lady in Waiting Lady Susan Hussey, far right, who resigned on November 30 2022 over allegations of racism 
James TweedieThe British royal family is no stranger to controversy, especially around the subjects of race and the UK’s colonial history. Now a new scandal has revived the issues just months into the reign of King Charles III.A member of the British royal household has resigned in a row over allegedly racially-charged comments — but is that the first race controversy the monarchy has faced?Lady Susan Hussey resigned on Wednesday after she was accused of racism towards a guest at a Buckingham Palace function.
WorldA Proper Scandal: Prince William and Princess Kate Arrive in Boston Amid Palace Race Row Yesterday, 07:21 GMTNgozi Fulani, founder of the Hackney-based charity Sistah Space, said Hussey repeatedly questioned her about her heritage, insisting on asking “what part of Africa are you from?” after she explained that she was born in the UK.Hussey, a baroness who served as a Woman of the Bedchamber for over 60 years, is also heir-to-the-throne Prince William’s godmother.The prince and his wife Kate Middleton received a hostile welcome on their trip to the US on Wednesday. Some spectators at a basketball game they attended booed the couple, while others chanted “USA! USA!” when their images appeared on the court’s big screen.
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Prince Philip
The late queen’s husband, also styled the Duke of Edinburgh, was notorious for the politically-incorrect remarks he often made on his constant round of public appearances.In a portent of Hussey’s comments, the duke once asked black Conservative Lord Taylor of Warwick: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?” The peer — who was later convicted of flase accounting for bogus expenses claims — replied: “Birmingham.”At an event in Scotland in 1995, he asked a driving instructor: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?””Do you still throw spears at each other?” Philip asked a group of Aboriginal dancers on a 2002 trip to Australia, although that was explained as a reference to a traditional dance the prince had witnessed years before. The following year he told Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo “you look like you’re ready for bed!” after the African leader wore traditional robes to their meeting.The Chinese did not escape the royal consort’s attention either. “If you stay here much longer you will all be slitty-eyed,” he warned a group of British exchange students in Xian in 1986. Later that year he told a meeting of the World Wildlife Fund, of which the keen hunter was a patron: “If it has four legs and it is not a chair, if it has two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”In a more extreme stereotype of national cuisine, he remarked: “You managed not to get eaten then?” to a student who had been hiking in Papua New Guinea in 1998.
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Harry and Meghan
In their infamous interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle claimed they had been mistreated by the royal family and even suffered racist abuse.During the two-hour show filmed at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s $15-million California mansion following the couple’s withdrawal from royal duties, Markle — who is mixed-race — claimed an unnamed relative had asked what color their firstborn son might be.Royal gossip-monger Lady Colin Campbell later claimed it was Princess Anne, the queen’s second daughter, who asked the loaded question.The Princess Royal was already known for being sharp-tongued after reportedly swearing at reporters after she fell off her horse while competing in the dressage in the 1970s. “They are there wherever I go. Journalists. Photographers,” Anne said later. “They’ve just got it in for me. Bastards. I told them to naff off, once!”Days later, Harry’s brother William was accused by some of racism for bringing a black woman employee on a visit to a school, where he dismissed a reporter’s suggestion the royal family were bigoted.But Markle was later accused of racial insensitivity herself after she allegedly used excessive amounts of spray tan as a form of “blackface” makeup for her appearance at a youth event in Manchester — just days before the queen’s death.
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Pass the Duchy Originals
Even King Charles III, who has risked breaking royal protocols on political neutrality by speaking out on ‘woke’ issues such as environmentalism and immigration, was once embroiled in a royal race row.On a trip to Jamaica in 2000, the then-Prince of Wales visited the famous Trenchtown slum in the capital Kingston and met Rita Marley, widow of Reggae star Bob Marley.Mrs Marley presented Charles with a red, gold and green knitted Rastafarian ‘tam’ hat, complete with fake dreadlocks dangling from the hem, which the prince gamely modelled for the cameras — while complaining it was “too hot” and donning it back-to-front.Marley later thanked the queen for entrusting her son to a ghetto once known as a “no-go” area for Jamaican politicians.
