Meghan, Duchess of Sussex: Race & Royalty

Sometime during the Summer of 2016, a guy and a girl went on a blind date. A seemingly innocuous event one might think, but then all hell broke loose. They came for her with viciousness.
portrait by Keith Boldy

Why? 

Perhaps an intimate relationship between a bi-racial woman and a Prince, 6th in line to the British throne awakens, for certain people, their deepest fear buried in the farthest hinterland of the reptilian brain: the fear of annihilation. 

Pause here for a moment to consider other seemingly innocuous events that  triggered a frenzied response, social and political upheaval and eventually, change. 

In 1893, a 24-year-old Indian lawyer arrived to work in Natal, South Africa. Within weeks of his arrival he was thrown off a first-class train compartment when a white passenger protested against sharing the carriage with a “coolie.”  

Three years later Ghandi returned to India and the rest is history. 

In 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, an exhausted 42-year-old black woman sat down in the front of a bus and refused to give up her seat to a white man. Her name was Rosa Parks. We know how that ended. Except it didn’t end. The African American fight for even the most basic rights, like the right to vote, is as fierce today as it was in 1955, particularly in the Southern, Confederate States.  

The American Civil Rights Act of 1964 supposedly put an end to all State and local laws upholding segregation or apartheid. In Britain we were still dealing with the ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’ signs. 

In 2008 I watched with excitement but also a level of disbelief when a certain young Senator from Illinois became President Elect of the United States. The first African American POTUS. 

Obama's Presidency was plagued by the most cruel, vicious and vile racial abuse, accompanied by the concerted efforts of Republicans to dismantle his legacy.   

During their memorable post engagement interview with Mishal Hussain (BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme) Meghan Markle and Prince Harry spoke of how unprepared they were for the shit storm (my words not theirs) that ensued when the tabloids realised that they were in a serious relationship.  

I will not rehearse here any of the vicious racist tropes purporting to pass for journalism produced by the “Fleet Street” Royal Hack Pack. They are titillated by their own voyeurism, and take pleasure in publicly humiliating others, again under the guise of journalism, and the British taxpayer’s “need to know”.
  
 During a private Caribbean holiday in 1982 one of the more benign members of the Pack snuck into the bushes and took a typical paparazzi shot of the then pregnant Princess Diana in a bikini. Parliament expressed its disapproval, and the Queen called it “The blackest day in the history of British journalism.  

Where was the Windsors' outrage when the Queen's newest daughter-in-law was being racially abused in the British media and her mixed heritage great-son was being likened to a monkey?

Despite the second-in-line's fist-bumps with rappers, Meghan first taste of Windsor-style racism emerged at her first 'meet the family' Christmas lunch when Marie-Christine, wife of Elizabeth's first cousin Prince Michael of Kent arrived with that infamous 'blackamore' broach.

"Racism!" Yelled the hypocritical British Media, arch racism-deniers.

But it continued when paparazzi hired a helicopter to take photos of the inside of the Sussexes home, including one purporting to be Meghan and Harry's bedroom. This was a serious breach of their security causing them to move. 

The Royal Hack Pack has a toxic and unhealthy obsession with the Duchess of Sussex and are having a field day venting their racist spleen on their “exotic” prey. One in particular behaves like a jilted lover, taking every opportunity to verbally berate the Duchess. Why? Because she 'ghosted' him apparently, whatever that means. It's stalking, and it earns him money.  

The most egregious offenders are the Mail and Sun, Britain’s equivalent of Fox News.  

There’s no doubt that the latest silly furore about whether or not Trump called Meghan 'nasty' was deliberately set up by Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun newspaper. He baited a thin-skinned President, known to lash out at perceived enemies. Trump did not disappoint. He referred to the wife of the Queen's grandson as nasty, and then tried to refute something stored on video tape. He used the same word to describe Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.

The oleaginous reporter used the kind of baby language one might adopt for a vexatious 5-year-old in the playground, revealing how the Brits regard Trump: a malignant baby. “Are you sorry not to see her because she wasn’t so nice about you...I don’t know whether you saw that?”  

The thing is Newton Dunn was not even being original. That very question was asked of Trump before. The first time, his response could even be described as ‘statesmanlike’. Trump sort of brushed it off and wished the couple well for their upcoming nuptials. He didn’t rise to the occasion. But timing is everything. 

This time the question lit a fuseTrump regressed to his usual verbal tantrums and the Sun generated maximum attention for itself, commanding a response from the sleaziest to the more serious news outlets, and earned mega bucks.  

The Royals are easy targets. They do the ‘never explain, never complain’ thing, except when they sue for unwarranted intrusiveness, and a young woman at home caring for her newborn, barely 4 weeks old, is an easy target 


When it became obvious that Meghan and Harry were in a serious relationship, I said if I were her mother, I’d put Meghan to sit down and check out whether she really understood what she was getting into. It was already apparent that the racist sections of the British media were gunning for her, a relentless crucible of the kind that impacts mental health. 

Is she not human? 

Not according to the British press. She is other, ‘exotically’ so, and therefore fair game. But a victim the Duchess is most definitely not. As a highly educated and accomplished 37-year old bi-racial woman, she’s been there, done that and has triumphed. 

And it is that fact which bugs the British tabloids. Like that young Indian lawyer and Rosa Parks, Meghan Markle apparently doesn’t know her place. She is not 'one of us'.  

Many of the Royal Hack Pack, who debase the name 'journalist' compared to those stellar individuals who put their lives at risk in war zones to shine a light on injustice and suffering, resent a bi-racial woman becoming a member of their ‘white’ Royal Family. Meghan has apparently displaced an 'English Rose' and the walls of white privilege has been breached.


But they need to suck it up. She is here to stay. Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are no push over. They are on a mission and setting their own agenda. 

Meghan and Harry are among the most significant disrupters of the 21st Century just by being who they are.  
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Related post: Farewell Obama: A President for My Time

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