Prince Charles Told A British Journalist She Didn’t Look Like She Was From Manchester

This week, the Queen announced her ‘sincere wish’ to have Prince Charles succeed her as head of the Commonwealth. That same week, Prince Charles made an off-the-cuff, casually racist remark to a British journalist speaking at the Commonwealth People’s Forum.

Anita Sethi, told her story in form of an open letter to Prince Charles in The Guardian,detailing her encounter with the Prince. She recalled:

‘I was holding a copy of an anthology, We Mark Your Memory: Writing from the Descendants of Indenture, in which I have an essay published. I told him that my mother was born in Guyana and that the anthology had collected hidden histories of indenture. “And where are you from?” asked the prince. “Manchester, UK,” I said. “Well, you don’t look like it!” he said, and laughed. He was then ushered on to the next person.’

Stunned by his assumption that the colour of her skin means she does not look as if she’s from a city in the UK, Anita has called for Prince Charles’ succession to be skipped, passed onto a generation that is ‘more enlightened’.

This comes at a time when a video of a young black man from Liverpool has gone viral with the caption ‘I’ve NEVER seen a black guy with this accent before’. (I do NOT recommend watching the whole video unless men fighting on the street is your vibe).

The tweet has been liked almost 30,000 times, highlighting that the ignorance of Prince Charles is not just prevalent within the Royal Family, but across the entire UK. The retweets perfectly exemplify Anita’s argument in her letter to Prince Charles, where she stated:

‘This is exactly why some people, including the prince, urgently need a history lesson about immigration, the British empire, the Commonwealth and colonialism.’

If there’s one thing I’ve found as a northerner down south, it’s that many southerners are highly miseducated about cities outside London. Not only do they assume we’re all working on coal mines, they also maintain the notion that the minute you leave London, everyone is white.

Prince Charles is one, inexcusable, example of this, and we also maintain that the future head of the Commonwealth should not be someone who brazenly makes such racist remarks. But when it comes to the rest of the UK, there’s a clear need for greater education on cultural and racial diversity.

So please, Prince Charles, rest of the UK, EDUCATE YOURSELVES before making ignorant remarks, in person and online. You never know who you could be offending.

While your here, why not educate yourself on the sexism women face around the world...

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.