The union of Harry and Meghan is a sign of progress.
TO MANY, DARK SKIN IS REGARDED AS NO MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN DARK HAIR
So Prince Harry is going to marry beautiful, stylish Meghan Markle. Isn’t it marvellous?
Not everybody agrees. A band of sour “republicans” considers the Canadian royal family an embarrassing foreign anachronism. But I’m not thinking of these killjoys, who don’t even realize that, under John Adams’ apt definition of a “republic” as “a government of laws, and not of men,” Britain has been one since before Magna Carta.
Nora mI concerned with grouches like myself who’d rather read about North Korean nukes and cybersecurity than a world trembling with anticipation of “the first royal wedding cake made from bananas,” according to a Daily Telegraph scoop. I’m thinking of people crying racism because no one cares about Markle’s race.
I’m not normally very interested in celebrity gossip. But banana cake sounds better than a lot of what gets served at weddings. And I was fascinated by the Telegraph’s further revelation that, “Thirteen months ago, Meghan Markle’s cryptic Instagram post of two bananas ‘ cuddling’ signalled the start of her whirlwind romance with Prince Harry. The picture — accompanied by the message ‘ sleep tight’ and two kisses — sent fans into overdrive…”
I’m not jealous that the banana business commemorates their first serious date at an exclusive Botswana resort. Who wouldn’t if they could? But I found it odd that this charming romantic message would be posted on a public social media site not sent privately.
Of course I’m not exactly “with it.” Whereas Markle is so modern that, according to something called “PopSugar,” she made her official engagement announcement sans standard royal pantyhose. And while again I do not expend much energy on celebrities’ attire, or lack of it, I found it revealing that even the royal family now challenges convention. If the Establishment is as vacant as it currently looks, maybe I’ll move in and squat.
It’s also revealing that Markle is remarkable as a royal bride, albeit of the No. 5 in line, because she is (a) divorced and (b) part black. Or rather, she’s unremarkable for it. The world, at least the nice part of it, has moved an astounding distance toward regarding dark skin as no more significant than dark hair during my lifetime, which you’d think would make people happy.
Instead, NBC this weekend ran a headline, “Meghan Markle’s engagement exposes racism that persists in the U. K.” See, while people everywhere are swooning over “the first person who identifies as biracial to join the upper echelons of the U.K.’s royal family,” as NBC put it with exquisite political correctness, “some black women in the U.K. said coverage of the American actress’ roots reveals how racism is more subtle and insidious than it is in the U.S.”
Yes, you read that right. The likelihood that Queen Elizabeth will, in the near future, welcome a black grandchild is proof of insidious racism, not of an amazing change of public sentiment in the last halfcentury.
I’ll grant one thing. The fact that instead of unkind gossip or public racial abuse, people are all gooey over the romance, the wedding cake and her dazzling glamorous style is subtle racism all right. So subtle it looks exactly like adulation which, I guess, just proves how clever they are.
Many years ago, Elizabeth Kristol wrote of feminism’s addiction to victim status: “if there were ever to be a Wide World of Feminism, its motto might well be ‘ The thrill of defeat, the agony of victory.’ ” The same is true of the identity left more broadly. They’re so addicted to resentment they’re actually unhappy at signs the world is becoming less cruel and unfair.
I’m not sure we should be quite so blasé about the crumbling of the last social restraints on divorce. The royals must, I suppose, move with the times. But family breakdown is not a good thing.
People are drawing comparisons with Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 to marry a divorced American commoner and even the stuffiness that supposedly made Camilla unsuitable for Charles in the early 1970s despite her great- grandmother being among Charles’s great- great- grandfather Edward VII’s mistresses. But while the latter was a tragedy, it was unrelated to any stigma around divorce. And frankly Britain might not have fought on after the Fall of France had Charles’s great- uncle Edward VIII’s judgment not been as poor in personal as public matters, making Elizabeth’s remarkable father George VI king during the crisis.
Enough grousing. What really matters about this engagement is that people today are about as likely to dislike Meghan Markle for being part-black as to scorn Harry as a “ginger.” When you consider how mainstream poisonous racism was as late as the 1960s, how can anyone not be happy?
Don’t worry. They’ll find a way. But I say ignore them and, for once, just enjoy the banana cake without reservation.