Meghan Markle’s Mutiny
Being a Black Woman in the Royal Family Was Never Going to Work
In a totally unanticipated public statement earlier this month, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex mutinied against a monarchical institution, confronted vicious media outlets and common disparagers, and chose more freedom for themselves and their baby boy.
Horrified traditionalists blame the uppity, black American wife.
Harry was their darling, Officer Prince until the hussy got under his skin, into his head and heart. Best-selling English novelist Sir Philip Pullman named and shamed their racism in a tweet and concluded: “This really is a foul country.” So why should they not escape from it? When Harry wed Meghan in 2018, the sun shone, birds sang, crowds cheerfully waved their wee union flags. The world loves performative British Royal weddings, but
“The wedding created fantasies of a post-racial nirvana. But we realists were wary.”
this one came loaded with symbolism. Idealistic white people and minorities whipped up fantasies about a post-racial, post-colonial nirvana. For biracial Bernadine Evaristo, co-winner with Margaret Atwood of the Booker Prize, the marriage was as significant as Barack Obama winning the U.S. presidency: “It’s a sign of how far we have come as a nation.”
Not quite, not at all.
We realists were wary of the mass buoyancy and delusions. As I wrote in this magazine in May 2018: “The family and country [Markle] is joining is not what they appear to be.” Most Americans don’t know the U.K.’S true history, its politics and society. To them this is a fun kingdom of crowns and grand houses, quaint traditions, country pubs, Richard Curtis movies and great pop music. I assume this is what the lovely and talented Ms. Markle thought she was coming into.
The couple met in July 2016, just a month after the Brexit referendum split the nation irrevocably. Overt hostility against immigrants and Britons of color leached out from those cracks. Brexiters declared a culture war on diversity and equality. The public space, which had gotten more civil, turned nasty and felt unsafe for those of us with roots elsewhere. Meghan, black, modern, feminist was a lodestone for seething xenophobes, macho men and some hateful women too.
During the build-up to the wedding, prejudiced journalists opined that she was more mistress than wife material or that she was from the “wrong side of the tracks.” One commentator told me he believed voodoo had been used by the “sorceress.” Harry objected to the treatment, which only encouraged the brutes. Meanwhile, palace enforcers started pulling feathers from her wings: She was to quit social media, learn to not be herself, to be a royal.
After the wedding, there was a brief lull, then the hounds began barking again. Everything she did was wrong. Meghan likes avocado on toast, so a newspaper accuses her of encouraging murder and droughts; she wears jeans to Wimbledon, so offends All England Club members. As guest editor of Vogue, she celebrates inspirational women for the cover, but NOT THE QUEEN! scream Monarchists. And so it goes. Social media has been even more toxic. Conservative courtiers too recoil from this Duchess, who is demanding and knows her own mind.
This woman turned Harry from a wild, partying brat to a responsible, sensitive person who talks about his mental health and his beloved mum. He just wants to protect his wife from the dark powers that crushed his mother. Diana was a naïve, trusting young virgin picked to breed by Charles and his then-mistress Camilla. Meghan is no Diana but there are similarities, mainly openness, inclusivity and vulnerability. Such women have no place in our undemocratic royal family which is often arrogant, greedy, self-serving and cold.
In December’s issue of the Tatler magazine, I speculated that 2020 would be crunch time for Britain and for Harry and Meghan. After we leave Europe at the end of January, I predict more racism and white nationalism on these isles. The Sussex family will escape all that for half the year. Good, first decision. Diana left her boys money. Next, they should liberate themselves from all royal trappings and live happily ever after. Good luck, guys. May the Force be with you.
→ Award-winning journalist Yasmin Alibhai-brown has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The sunday Times and The new york Times. Currently, she is a columnist for the international business Times and The new european. The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.