Baby race row just won’t go away for the royals.. and it’s time to put it to bed
There seems to be a number of people out there who don’t understand why it’s not OK to racially profile an unborn child.
Some may be acting deliberately obtuse but, for those who are open to learning, I’m going to break it down.
I do this because two members of the Royal Family allegedly had ‘concerns’ about the skin colour of Meghan Markle’s unborn baby and, rather than discussing why any such conversation or comment is problematic and deeply hurtful, I’m seeing victim-blaming, gaslighting and excusing something that’s ignorant and, at best, unconscious bias.
Unfortunately for the royals, it’s the story that won’t go away.
The alleged ‘concerns’ were first brought up when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat down with Oprah Winfrey for their bombshell interview in 2021.
But the story has been given a new life as new book Endgame, by royal biographer Omid Scobie, suffered a “translation error” which named the two members of the family involved.
It’s been called the ‘royal racism row’ but I’m not going to use that term.
Speaking from experience, when someone says the wrong thing, it’s best to sometimes allow for a lack of knowledge or unawareness when talking about issues around race and that’s where this sorry affair has gone horribly wrong. This should have been discussed privately and, if family
members needed to be educated, it should have been done there and then, not cast up months later to the biggest TV star in the world.
Meghan and Harry doing an interview with Oprah and telling the story without mentioning any names felt deliberate – they’ve left a two-year void of people wondering, “Who had a problem with Archie’s skin?” As a mixed-race woman and the mother of a mixed-race child, I can honestly say if any member of my own or Jonatan’s family had questions about the colour of my son’s skin before he was born, it would be something incredibly hard for me to get over.
As I carried my baby, who is of Finnish, Swedish, Scottish and Ugandan heritage, I never gave a thought to what his complexion would be.
I have nieces and nephews of mixed heritage and every one of them is so completely different.
I understand that genetics are wonderful, unpredictable and unique so I had no idea what my little one might look like and I didn’t care – no one should.
After all, my own father had red hair and blue eyes. I’ve heard arguments this week that it’s ‘natural’ to ask questions about what an unborn child might look like and, yes, since my husband and I both have naturally curly hair, people speculated if Junior would be blessed with the same. It’s also normal to comment on whether baby might look like mum or dad.
However, once complexion, shades, darkness or race comes in to the conversation, it’s dangerous, not ‘clumsy’, as some royal commentators have decided to label the alleged interaction.
As a biracial woman who grew up in the US, I’m sure Meghan would have expected conversations around the skin colour of her child perhaps from the traditionalists, racists and the uneducated, so to experience it from within her new ‘ family’ must have been devastating. Talk of the
Sussexes losing their titles or the accused taking legal action is just noise. They’ve done nothing wrong in speaking their truth and reportedly have nothing to do with the book.
Only the people who were there know exactly what was said about Archie’s skin colour. If it’s true, Meghan is due an unreserved and public apology. If it’s not true, it’s time for the Windsors to drop all the “never explain, never complain” nonsense as being accused of something so deplorable is serious and, if it never happened or words were misconstrued, they should vigorously and urgently defend themselves.
The monarchy are already on shaky ground with some commonwealth countries, so accusations based around race or blackness are extremely damaging for their brand globally.