News recently broke that Meghan Markle, a humanitarian and an actress from the show ‘Suits’, is dating the UK’s favourite royal, Prince Harry. Their rumored relationship is already proving to be controversial due to the pure fact that Markle, is, get ready for it… black. The possibility of a non-white Royal is already not playing well with Britain’s nationalists who has racist tendencies, and their relationship isn’t even confirmed yet. Meghan Markle is only rumored to be Prince Harry’s girlfriend for a few days now, and most of her life has already been scrutinized and criticized by the harsh British Media that cannot seem to fathom the possibility of a black Princess in the British Monarchy.
Tabloid press has already done their research on Meghan Markle’s background to use it against her; one of DailyMail’s recent articles uses her mother’s upbringing against her – describing Crenshaw in Los Angeles as an area “plagued by crime and riddled with street gangs” (as if that makes a difference on the rumoured couple’s relationship) and this just shows an example of how UK’s society views people with non-royal backgrounds who are dating Royals as inferior. Markle is a dedicated humanitarian; she is a UN advocate for Gender Equality and is very well interested in issues surrounding different parts of the world in which she uses her platform to bring awareness to, her hometown and upbringing shouldn’t be criticized just because she is dating a Royal who happens to be the fifth in line for the throne.
The Guardian has also pointed out that the British press refuses to acknowledge the fact that Meghan Markle, indeed a biracial actress – with a white father and a black mother. Different phrases are used to imply this instead; most articles that have been written describe her as “not Prince Harry’s usual type” as she has “brunette hair” in relation to all of Prince Harry’s range of white, blonde-haired and upper class ex-girlfriends. Even her status as a divorced woman is also used against her, a very controversial aspect in terms of a Royal’s love life as it can prevent the marriage of a couple is the person the Royal is marrying is a previous divorcee (a note that all marriages in the British Monarchy must first be approved by the current Monarch, which is Queen Elizabeth for now).
Monarchy in Britain is still perceived to be one of its most prominent features, with a good percentage of the country’s income comes from the tourism aspect of it and the general public is still very interested in all the events that they hold. Memorabilia is still a big thing, believe it or not. So, the Royals’ private life is inevitable to be important to the public overall, but just because there is a small and important change within the system – AKA the possibility of a black princess or just a prince having a black girlfriend overall, does not mean that it gives the right for the tabloid to use her race against her at any given point.
Comments are closed.