In
what was to herald a new era for the British Royal Family, and the United
Kingdom, the marriage of Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle was
deemed pivotal to understanding, a new world, and a new cultural legitimacy,
albeit inclusiveness, for England, and for some little girls that looked just a
bit different than their peers.
“It’s
worth standing back and restating – the British family will now have, at its
heart, at its future, a British woman who isn’t white,” the BBC’s former royals
correspondent Peter Hunt told us prior to the royal wedding. “That imagery and
what it says to people in the UK is a powerful, potent and positive
development.”
The
biracial Ms. Markle and the beloved younger son of the late Princess Diana
seemed ripe for a fairy tale wedding and the day did not disappoint with
sunshine smiles, and an A-list crowd of American film stars, with the likes of
Amal and George Clooney, Oprah, and most of the cast of “Suits” - Markle’s hit
show.
In
less than a blink of an eye, the scene shifted to racist tropes, and
descriptions of a slum house where the bride was supposedly raised, all of
which was false.
As
The Washington Post reported, in 2018, “Markle is many of the things that Fleet
Street would typically scoff at — an American, an actress, divorced, biracial
and older than her betrothed, Prince Harry. And scoff they did back in 2016
when the two first started dating. The coverage of the romance was so invasive
— and the commentary on social media and elsewhere so ugly — that Harry took the unusual step of publicly confirming the relationship by issuing a statement denouncing “the racial
undertones of comment pieces, and the outright sexism and racism of social
media trolls and web article comments.”
Sadly
after some noteworthy praise and a concentration on the less than helpful
relationship with her family, mother excepted, tattered by revelations of the
financial and health problems by Markle’s father, Thomas, and the many-headed
hydra of a step sister, all seemed calm for a bit. Just a bit.
Then
it began again with the British tabloid press, and more scurrilous “accounts”
and references to more slums, and Los Angeles gangs, then all was quiet, one
again, as Markle took on a hefty
schedule of appearances, as the latest member of the Firm, as the Royal family
refers to its work --- much of which helps to shore up the coffers of charities
and organizations designed to help improve the social fabric of Britain, be it
orphanages, adoption centers, educational scholarships, etc --- and as the
example of Diana had shown: with one mention that there is royal patronage,
financial donations increase tenfold.
.
Additionally,
the charitable efforts of Prince Charles notwithstanding, and the many royal
patents from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and the Duke of Edinburgh, make more
than a dent.
Suddenly
it all began again, and a rather typical headline revealed, even then how
things were going to be: “UKIP leader Henry Bolton removed after lover made
racist comments about Meghan Markle”
“Mr
Bolton publicly fell out with the party's national executive committee, which
had tried to remove him after his 25-year-old lover, Jo Marney, made offensive
comments about Prince Harry's fiancee Ms Markle in text messages to a friend.
She
said black people were "ugly" and Ms Markle would "taint"
the royal family.
The
text messages, obtained by UK newspaper the Mail, also said Ms Markle was a
"dumb little commoner" with a "tiny brain".”
What
began as a simple pregnancy -- both desired as well as expected, things began
to unravel with the press shifting gears into the negative lane, faster than a
race car driver on a speedway.
Harper's
Bazaar gave a succinct analysis: “The
shift began in earnest after Meghan fell pregnant, which is interesting given
how many loaded comments were made about her age and ability to have children.
Anyway, so Meghan proves herself fertile and bears a child as the right-wing
press wanted, but her way of being pregnant somehow started to annoy everyone.
A lot was made about how she held her baby bump – “What a narcissist. We get
it. You’re pregnant. [...] Meghan Markle is a complete diva,” sniped one
Twitter user. “Why can’t she just stand normal [sic],” said another angry
tweeter. “She is just constantly showing off and this is really disgusting and
repelling.”
One
insightful report likened the demand for the Sussex family to give them more,
and more, like sex-obsessed old geezers at a local strip bar, crying, “Give us
more!”
When
Meghan and Harry opted for a private and hopefully natural birth (a hospital
was at the ready, just in case) and to forego the private wing at The Great Ormond and the requisite photo call
endured by Diana and Catherine - cruel
in its nature to demand a woman to give birth, and then be made up, and
coiffed, to stand weakly in the chill as cameras click away with her baby in
arms - roused them to a fever pitch of criticism.
“Show
us the kid, C’mon!”
To
add insult to injury, “After the Royal baby’s birth recently, a BBC Radio 5
Live presenter, Danny Baker, took to
Twitter to post a black and white picture of a man and woman walking out of a
hospital with a baby monkey and the caption, "Royal baby leaves hospital."
Must
this vitriolic racism even be extended to their infant son?
Cruelty
comes in many forms, but what has remained largely unspoken is the sheer volume
of racism directed toward this young woman, with a new life, title, religion,
country citizenship, baby and least of all, a new husband, who has done his
best to protect his wife; but, also the marriage became to be viewed as
an act of betrayal by a white man, no less a royal one.
Then
the hashtag of #Megexit appeared accompanied by wild accusations of fueling
battles between Harry and William, insulting the Queen, or Prince Charles,
depending on the source, and most social media gleefully citing the tabs as
“reliable” sources.
Photo
shopped photos of the former actresses face on nude models, quickly appeared on
the internet, as her detractors saw these as the final proof of her vulgarity.
Some
outlets filled their daily digests with nothing but derisive sentence -- in the
know of course, about Meghan’s extravagance, greed and petulance, and even the
renovations on their home, Frogmore Cottage, with a private yoga studio and a
suite for her mother Daria Ragland, all of which proved to be false in legal
documents filed with the local authorities.
If
racism can be nationalized, then the fallout with Meghan and Harry departing
for an independent life --- away from the brutalizing tabs - is to be expected,
but as Harry noted recently, it was sad that it all had to come to this.
With
echoes of the past, some of this damnation
seemed to be built, in part, on the 1936 comments on Wallis Warfield Simpson,
who later became the wife of Edward VIII, after he abdicated, when it was clear
that Wallis could not be his consort, (and became the Duke of Windsor), as common, scheming, and manipulative.
It
became apparent that Meghan had now become a black Eve with the forbidden fruit
in one hand, and a supposed desire to have her way, at all times, as a hapless
Harry stood mutely by her side.
A
disembodied voice on the radio recently opined, over the breakfast table, that
since Meghan was divorced and biracial, “that did not go down well with the
English.”
Even
that was a smokescreen, of sorts, with divorce rampant in the family: Prince
Charles, Princess Anne, and Prince Edward.
While
that episode ended with a dreaded conversation with the Queen, much of Sarah’s
sins were eventually cleaned up, especially the financial, but much of what she
endured, by the royal household staff combined with the petty cruelty of Fleet
Street, seemed wildly excessive.
She recently noted that she knew how Meghan felt, having been in her shoes, but
would not offer public advice, since it would be taken out of context.
While
it is true that Harry was the “spare” and William the “heir” - ironically coined
by American born Consuelo Vanderbilt who later became the Duchess of
Marlborough after she married Sunny, the 9th Duke in the late 19th century; it
was just as true that carving out a role beyond that of the little brother was
in plan, and only the barrage of what the Queen later politely coined “intense
scrutiny” by the press forced a new plan to be
financially independent and to not use their primary titles of HRH, and spend only part of
their time in England.
As
shameful as this has turned out there is some possible “good” in outing our
cousins across the pond as they try to duck from
abject racism.
Ella Alexander in Harper's Bazar seemed to
sum it all, so well, even with British restraint, when she said, “Of all the
unpleasant, racist and sexist high-profile figures currently living in our
country, we naturally seem to have reserved our highest anger and upset for a
young woman adjusting to motherhood. We seem to have lost all proportion and
perspective in favour of old traditions about how a royal woman should behave.
How classically, depressingly British.”
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