Across the Pond
British White Supremacy Simply Can’t Leave Meghan Markle Alone
British racism is more sophisticated than the American brand. It’s insidious. it’s like death by a million microaggressions.
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Meghan Markle has left Britain, paid back taxpayer’s money, conceded all of her titles and privileges, but she is still vilified by much of the British media. Her resistance to anti-Black racist aggression challenges their efforts to preserve White supremacy. Meghan’s resistance doesn’t allow the White ignorance and dominance needed to maintain the wider structures of White privilege.
I never thought Meghan Markle joining the royal family represented a changing institution in a changing British society. I saw Meghan’s inclusion as a straight hustle for the royal family to make themselves relevant for another hundred years and to justify living off of British taxpayer’s money while maintaining and contributing to systems of inequality.
You see, Prince William, Harry’s elder brother and second in line to the British throne, married a “commoner” when he tied the knot with Kate Middleton. Kate’s father was a pilot, and her mother was a flight attendant who then went on to run a successful small business. This union broke the class glass ceiling in the royal family and then later, Meghan’s inclusion as a biracial woman who identifies as Black allowed for the so-called “public acceptance” of racial diversity, which made the Royal family relevant to millions of people of Black African descent around the world.
Meghan was not the first mixed-race woman who has married into the British Royal family. Queen Charlotte, whose name two centuries later lives on as a result of the city in North Carolina, was the first. She was a royal of German and African descent. Meghan is Black and a commoner and American and a divorcee and a feminist who decided she would not be hustled by the royal family when what was largely on offer was characterized by misogynoir and anti-Black racist and sexist attacks on her personhood.
A BBC presenter was fired for tweeting a picture of a chimpanzee and likening it to the couple’s son, Archie. Other commenters referred to her as having “exotic DNA,”…
