Any chance that someone who is a guest at Buckingham Palace might have been just a bit nervous, careful of not putting a foot wrong etc? Surely its the duty of the hosts, and a LiW is in that role, to make the guests feel comfortable and put them at their ease?
To do that they should have a degree of empathy, intuition and emotional intelligence ... as well as an awareness of current social mores and acceptable behaviour.
Some folk are obviously lacking in the required social skills.
Of course she may have been nervous - excited, elated - any range of emotions. So may the LiW - how many actors - even after years on stage get stage fright? Do LiWs always have an active part in these things? I haven't a scooby.
I go back to it Dove - take the first two questions and answers as a misunderstanding. Then take out the bit surrounding 'your people' and what do you have left?
IF, IF, IF the question had been better put couldn't the conversation have gone:
'Where are you from?' - LiW putting anyone at ease - asking the preson to talk aboiut themselves
...would that have been racist? I bet that hjas occurred a million times at all sorts of Royal and non-royal gatherings around the world.
Isn't what is being discussed here hindsight? Ms Fulani I think misunderstood that opener - hence her understandable reply to questions 1 and 2.
To see a conversation laid out in black and white and without knowing what the intent was makes it impossible to judge. All I say - and still say, is that asking where someone is from isn't racist.
Is the LiW racist? No idea.
Is asking someone where they're from racist?- even if the question is repeated as you think the person questioned hasn't understood the question. I don't think so. You could apply all the terms in your second paragraph to the question(s) ie - lacking in empathy, lacking in emotional intelligence - but racist?
Credit where it's due, you put a lot of thought and effort into your posts. But I'm afraid because they're inevitably so long I probably miss some of the more salient points. Can I suggest (in the nicest way possible) you think about posting with a little more editing. You'd be hopeless on Twitter! [Joke!!] 😁🥴
A delivery came while I was walking the dog and they put a note through the door saying 'parcel in blue bin at side of house'. So I went to the bin at the side of the house and found it was missing. I looked everywhere and couldn't find it. I looked at the note again and thought maybe they'd chucked my bin over the gate but no it wasn't there either. The gate on the other side is locked and there's a load of stuff in front of it at the moment so it couldn't be there. I walked around the estate to see if my bin had been dumped but no sign of it. I came back and looked around again just in case I'd missed a large blue bin the first time but no still no bin anywhere. Then I noticed the locked gate wasn't properly locked so I moved all the stuff out of the way and opened it up and there was my bin tucked neatly away inside. Full marks for secure delivery technique but draw me a frickin' treasure map next time.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Posts
However, just to respond to @KT53 ... please see what I said in my post preceding the one you quote above.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
You'd be hopeless on Twitter! [Joke!!] 😁🥴
I could have been rich!
We had a house each when we married and possibly could have kept both. I sold mine for tax reasons but should have kept it and rented it out.
Oh well....