If Megxit has exposed anything about Britain — and let’s be clear it has revealed a lot — it’s that the country remains as uncomfortable as ever with race. From the moment Meghan Markle and Prince Harry first descended the sprawling steps of Windsor Castle as husband and wife, public reservations about the world’s most famous expat came trickling in, a dark undercurrent beneath the wave of optimism about the Royal Family’s new chapter. She’s too strong-willed. Too Hollywood. Too outspoken. Too feminist. Too American. Too woke. And black.
That last one.
You might not have heard talk about Meghan phrased as such, probably because the word ‘black’ bafflingly still seems to generate so much discomfort in many circles. And yet the feeling ran a through-line, connecting a string of racist happenings in traditional news outlets and on social media: the Daily Mail claimed the Duchess was (almost) straight out of Compton. A BBC Radio Host posted a tweet comparing her baby, Archie, to a chimpanzee. And a chorus of online commentators complained the couple were too woke, longing for the days of ‘fun Harry,’ back when he partied in a Nazi costume and was photographed dancing around a pool naked.
She’s too strong-willed. Too Hollywood. Too outspoken. Too woke. And black.
No doubt, the through-line ran its course among the family too, going so far as to appear as a blackamoor brooch on Princess Michael of Kent’s chest at the Queen’s annual Christmas lunch in 2017.
No matter how you feel about Megxit or the manner in which it was announced to the world – whether you sit on Team Harry and Meghan, Team Queen, or somewhere in between – one would be delusional to ignore the role racism plays in the story of the Sussex Royals.
History is filled with examples of prominent black Americans who moved abroad in order to live in a more accepting environment, away from the uniquely vituperative brand of racial hatred so often found in America. Whether it was Josephine Baker and James Baldwin moving to Paris or Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones settling in the UK, the thinking was that things were somehow different, more civilised, over here than in the US.
And to this day, the myth of a postracial England remains. But public reaction to the royal family’s first ever mixed-race marriage proved a different reality, one filled with exhausting double standards. It’s both telling and saddening that Harry and Meghan’s plans to rethink their roles within the family has seemingly generated more outrage than Prince Andrew’s far more troubling connections to a child sex trafficker.
And Meghan is not the only person of colour to be treated this way. One need only look at the experiences of Raheem Sterling or Stormzy calling out media bias for further proof that the UK has a race problem that needs to be discussed openly and honestly.
Black. Say it with me. Out loud. Was that so hard?
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