What Megan Markle’s Conundrum with Responding to Anti-Blackness Says About Racism
The UK (and by Black folks standards, America) gained our first Black princess via Prince Harry and Megan Markle, former Duchess of Sussex and we rejoiced about having a Black princess-one who was active in her community, well versed in social justice issues and conducted herself with grace, class and a little bit of sass.
But while most of us were excited, the Royal Family and some other incompetent folks peppered her with vitriol, questioned her authenticity as a woman of color and made her feel underserving of the role and life she stepped into, which ultimately led her and Prince Harry to separate from the Royal Family.
Megan Markle was born in sunny Los Angeles, California to a White filmmaker father Thomas Markle, and a Black mother,Doria Ragland. Megan grew up under a strong guise of feminism and volunteerism. She graduated from Northwestern University’s School of Communication in 2003.
With a short stint in Hollywood acting gigs on shows like General Hospital and Deal or No Deal and films such as Get Him to the Greek and Horrible Bosses, Megan had great acting experiences under her belt. In 2014, Megan began to blog about food, beauty, fashion and travel, including her own story on her website The Tig.
Meghan said setting up the website was an attempt to "reframe the beauty content to include think pieces about self-empowerment" and feature dynamic, inspirational women.
In one post, she explained: "I've never wanted to be a lady who lunches - I've always wanted to be a woman who works."
Megan is also big into philanthropy, penning a article tackling menstrual health for Time Magazine in March 2017, was a global ambassador for World Vision Canada that campaigns for better education, food and healthcare for children across the globe and traveled to Rwanda campaigning for clean water, among other things.
Megan met Prince Harry in late 2016 and confirmed that they were in a relationship-they met through a mutual friend. A few vacations and dates later, the two were wed on May 19, 2018 at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in the UK.
It was blissful for a while-but that soon paved way for trouble in paradise.
Prince Harry and Megan Markle shocked the Royal Family, British kingdom and America by announcing that they would like to take a step back from the senior roles of royalty they have within the family and carve out a new progressive path for themselves and become financially independent. This revelation came in January of this year, a shock to the royal kingdom and most of America. Besides the scrutiny and wanting to be their own family and people, a lot of their decision to separate themselves was due to the anti-blackness and racism that Megan was facing.
From the very first headline about her being “(almost) straight outta Compton” and having “exotic” DNA, the racist treatment of Meghan has been impossible to ignore. Princess Michael of Kent wore an overtly racist brooch in the duchess’s company. A BBC host compared the couple’s newborn baby to a chimpanzee. Then there was the sublimely ludicrous suggestion that Meghan’s avocado consumption is responsible for mass murder, while her charity cookbook was portrayed as somehow helping terrorists.
When Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry were in South Africa as part of the royal tour earlier this year, ITV’s Tom Bradby worked with them on a documentary that is set to air in the U.K. this weekend.
Harry & Meghan: An African Journey features Tom’s candid conversations with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who opened up about their lives since they were married and welcomed baby Archie Harrison. Harry and Meghan recently launched legal allegations against several U.K. publications.
When asked about motherhood, Megan tearfully answered, “ I would say… look, any woman, especially when they’re pregnant, you’re really vulnerable, and so that was made really challenging. And then when you have a newborn… you know?”
“And especially as a woman, it’s really… it’s a lot, so you add this on top of just trying to be a new mum or trying to be a newlywed… it’s, um…” she said, clearly struggling to maintain composure. “Yeah, well, I guess… and also thank you for asking because not many people have asked if I’m ok, but it’s a… very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.”
Everyone who says these vehemently disgusting attacks on the former Duchess have nothing to do with her race are delusional at best and wilfully ignorant at worst. The attempts to link her to gang activity, terrorist attacks and classist stereotypes of Black folks are a direct result of internalized racism. It happened in America slightly, but most of the racism surprisingly came from Britain.
Britain still has a very racist society based on race and class- the relatively few people of color — and even fewer if you count only those who have African heritage — who rise to prominence and prosperity in Britain are often told they should be “grateful” or told to leave if they don’t like it there.
The scandal surrounding the wrongful deportation of black British people in recent years is still reverberating. They pioneered the slave trade and recruited people from the Carribean and Africa to work for low wages, along with the long history of discrimination against Black Brtits for education and housing is a recipe for disaster.
Their decision not to give their son Archie a royal title from birth is a coded statement that they want to give him a fresh start away from the racism they’ve experienced, which is wise.
The attacks on Megan and her family have proved unfortunately tha no matter how well you dress, how much money you have, how much status you attain or money you possess, racism is always covert and alive, tending to hurt the most vulnerable in their wake. Britain and some of America have a long way to go in anti-Blackness rhetoric elimination, but I sincerely am proud of Prince Harry loving his wife so much that he’s risking his status with his royal family to protect his own, and that Megan is choosing herself and her sanity by protecting and celebrating her identity by pulling away from a historically racist and oppressive society by marching on to the beat of her own drum-like a true Black woman does.