Race and the Royals
Prince Harry’s black belle is a breakthrough for Brits
SOMETHING big happened in Toronto this week: After a year of assignations and innuendo, Prince Harry — the second-born spare to Prince William’s heir — was finally seen in public with his girlfriend, American actress Meghan Markle.
As with most royal encounters, the “casual stroll” devolved into a swarm of paparazzi who greedily snapped the couple as they visited Toronto’s Invictus Games, a paralympics for wounded soldiers of which Harry is founder and president.
It was the first time the two had ever appeared together as a couple and — far more meaningfully — the first time in the near 1,300-year history of Britain’s royal family that a member (particularly a prince) has so formally consorted with a known ethnic minority. However brief, Harry and Meghan’s gameside canoodling was a PDA of historic proportions.
Because Meghan Markle is black — or at least as black as our first black president, Barack Obama — born to an African-American mother and white father in Los Angeles.
Yet, in stark contrast to the endless clamor surrounding Obama, there’s been surprisingly little discussion about the skin color of the world’s highest-profile potential bride.
Don’t blame the silence on Markle — who’s hardly shied away from sharing her multi-culti background. In a cover profile in Vanity Fair last month, for instance, Markle described her childhood as steeped in the complexities of race, but shielded by her parents from its consequences. Their goal, Markle previously wrote in a 2015 essay for Elle, was “to make me feel like I wasn’t different, but special.”
And “special” rather than “different” seems to be the strategy the Royal Family is also taking to deal with — or, rather, avoid? — the issue of Markle’s race.
Part of the reason for the lack of discussion around this admittedly sensitive subject may be because of what happened when the British press tried talking about her background initially: UK tabloids used terms like “gangsta,” “slave ancestors” and “crime plagued” to describe Markle, her family and her childhood neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Harry’s reaction was swift and clear — lay off. But in removing racism from the Markle story, the palace also erased race, reducing Markle to just another ravenhaired pretty face rather than the African-American pioneer she actually is (and the cultural modernizer the royal family so desperately needs).
Indeed, there’s been a curious reluctance to publicly speak about Markle’s blackness on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, the black media (and black leaders) almost always claim biracials as their own — even folks like mixed-race tennis star Madison Keys, who refuses to call herself black.
Markle, however, has been conspicuously off their radar since linking with the prince: There have been no profiles in Essence or specials on BET.
Meanwhile, the mainstream press appears too timid to fully “go there” on Markle’s race — and only alludes to the significance of her royal relationship without directly linking it to Markle’s color. She is, you might say, the only black celebrity avoiding the race question these days.
Over in the UK, Fleet Street seems to be honoring Harry’s wishes and has virtually removed all references to race from their incessant Markle coverage.
Critics on both the left and right might ask: “Why does her color matter?” In short, it shouldn’t. Markle is an educated, accomplished, beautiful woman who’s demonstrated the poise and discipline required to navigate the House of Windsor.
But despite rumors of an illegitimate black child during the reign of Louis XIV and the supposed “blackness” of England’s 19th-century Queen Charlotte, only one minority — black American designer Angela Brown (now a princess of Lichtenstein) — has ever married into European royalty. Ever.
Nor was there an elected nonwhite European head of state until Irish-Indian Leo Varadkar was voted as Ireland’s Prime Minister earlier this year (he also happens to be gay).
Which is why Markle’s race does matter — even as the Windsors pretend that it’s merely a technicality. Don’t forget, the term “blue blood” is derived from the notion that aristocrats should be so pale that their blue veins are visible through their skin. Even after the gloomiest British winter, that is quite unlikely to happen to Markle.
What is likely, however, is a renewed focus on Markle’s race if — and as seems likely, when — she evolves from mere royal girlfriend to fiancée and, eventually, wife and mother. Royals typically rule for life. Markle doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. That’s a big deal — and we should say so.