To Americans of colour, this royal marriage was a sign of a new era

Ihave lived and worked in this country for half my life. The UK has generally been good to me and for me. I was born in the United States, an African-american. So for a while, I got a pass – that is, I was “allowed”. It took me a while to understand and know that. My experience of growing up in America was one of grand mal institutional racism: police violence; voter disenfranchisement and a general lack of access to a thriving society.

So at the beginning, in the UK, I had the feeling of a kind of freedom, a place to be. It was, and it is, an illusion.

I watched the Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan and Prince Harry with great sadness. Not so much because of them, but for this country. What I had suspected for a long time was pretty clear: that Harry wanted to leave not only the Royal family, but the country of his birth.

Since the interview was shown in the United States on Sunday evening, my American relatives have bombarded me with questions, because they had been here – and for them the UK is London, and London is central London, and everyone had been so kind, so welcoming.

My late father, Ben, who was stationed here in the Second World War, in the racially segregated US military, found the people here to be

‘After the wedding I walked in the grounds of Windsor Castle and believed that there might be a new era’

kind and warm. He never forgot England. It was a beacon to him.

How could he know what the reality was in regards to ethnic minorities, to black people here? He would have had to live in the UK to know that.

For many Americans, many Americans of colour, the entry of an American woman of African descent into the Royal family was a way to look to another place. To see what could be possible within a society and culture older than the US.

At the wedding there was the glorious choir and the Africanamerican preacher and Doria Ragland, an African-american woman in locks – beautiful and proud.

I covered it for an American television network, and afterwards walked in the grounds of Windsor Castle, at night, and saw the fireworks and believed, for a moment, that there might be a new era.

Earlier, I had had a debate on set and on air with an African-american anchor covering the wedding with me. He said that the UK was about to be born again. After all, the welcoming of an American woman, whose maternal ancestor would have been chained down in the hole of a slave ship while her husband-to-be’s ancestor was King of Great Britain, had to be an indication that something had changed. A new story.

Now the story is broken. And a bit of the US’S feeling about the UK is broken, too.

The Royal family had the chance to represent this coming world. And they, and those who support them, blew it.