The absolute state of the Daily Mail (re Meghan Markle)

[Hithere12]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7298013/Meghan-Markles-organic-baby-shawl-used-swaddle-Archie-workers-earning-37-PENCE-hour.html

This is there top story. Meghan is using a cheap shawl & DM have found the factory it was made in.

She’s been criticised non stop for her spending, uses something cheap and the DM visit the sweatshop it was made in! I’m sorry but we are all guilty of this, very few people I’m sure track down where everything they buy is made and how much the staff are paid.

It’s just getting ridiculous how they’ll find literally anything to criticise.

If the DM want to expose sweat shops (something they care little about usually) they have the resources and man power to do so but they don’t give a shit they just want to go after Meghan.

What precisely did you object to about the garden cents? How is that being badly advised? Just because you don’t like/understand/approve of something does not make it ill-advised.

The majority of young families in Britain do not have a garden big enough to re-create Kate's garden, let alone the means to do so.

Same with private education, exotic holidays, posh clothing and birthday parties - it's all taxpayer funded and way beyond most families' everyday reality.

It's all very well to promote outdoor living, quite another to assume everyone has the means to do so in their back garden/in general. It comes across as smug and pretentious.

If Jane Goodall tells you not to have too many children then you're hardly going to disagree with her, are you??

What’s this grotesque extravagance (judged by the standards of the RF in general)?

It may not be more or less extravagant than other members of the royal family but it is a grotesque misuse of position. I am not British so don't care, but I can see why people do. This is the lifestyle gifted to her, money, protection, healthcare beyond anyone's dreams and millions to spend on clothes and a house makeover. Like any job this all comes with a 'price'. She is not fulfilling the remit of her role. It wouldn't matter so much if she was a Nobel winner, an expert in her field, a well educated visionary driving future research in her area of expertise; but no she is an actress from suits using the rag Vogue for publicity. I can see why people don't like her, what has she to say that is more important than anything, anyone on here could say and she says it all from a jewel encrusted tower. If that is life's meaning Meghan, ditch the royals, ditch the money, if the press and all the trappings bother you so much Harry, ditch it and do your life's work using public transport. it can't be both.

@NoMoreCents I'm convinced if Meghan had been behind the garden then the arguments you've set out there would've been put forth by the Mail etc as a stick with which to beat her!

He could have just laughed. He didn't need to specify exactly how many kids and why. It was a chance to preach though and Harry doesn't seem to pass up many of those lately.

Okay...

It’s just really easy anyway to point out their hypocrisy, unearned positions and ranks etc (see Charles in a military uniform stuffed full of medals as exhibit A)

It makes it a thousand times worse when they actually start lecturing us how to live our lives, how many children to have, how to tackle the unconscious racism inside our brains. God give me strength.

It might be well meaning but they just end up coming across as hugely spoilt, lacking in insight. clearly this vogue thing was all dreamed up as a PR guru’s wet dream and it’s just wrong.

NoMoreCents I'm convinced if Meghan had been behind the garden then the arguments you've set out there would've been put forth by the Mail etc as a stick with which to beat her!

That may be so, however, my thoughts on it do hold truth.

Oh definitely @NoMoreCents, I wasn't disagreeing with you.

“r. Like any job this all comes with a 'price'. She is not fulfilling the remit of her role.”
Really? I thought the remit of her role was to visit places, open things, attend things, chat to people, be patron of things.....What else is she supposed to be doing?

Or Laverne Cox who led a high profile campaign for the rights of a child murderer.

How exactly is DoS 'The country’s most influential beacon of change'?

No need to be rude OP. I don’t have to agree with you, although I’m sure you’d prefer it if I did. Doesn’t make me a sycophant or that old perennial MN favourite forelock tugger.

I haven’t read the Vogue article in full, so I’m not going to say whether it’s citing or not.

In terms of a newspaper’s intention - to make money - Meghan is treated no differently to any royal: in that the paper plays in to readers interests and prejudices to keep them buying and reading. So for example, with Kate, they will have played into readers’ prurience, jealousy and class prejudices.
With Meghan, they are doing the same, but obviously with Meghan there will be racial prejudice to be tapped into. They can’t be overtly racist but there is so much they can be reported on that seems innocuous but draws some quite unsavoury remarks in the comments section. If, for example, you google ‘Meghan hair,’ there is article after article referring to up-dos,, sleek hair and so on. Seems fine, but many readers will, immediately be thinking about sleek hair/frizzy hair and prejudices are at play, with no come back on the paper.
The worrying difference between the treatment of Kate and other royals as opposed to that of Meghan is that she is the vehicle whereby racial attitudes to all black people in this country can be altered. If people are reading this sort of stuff day after day, they become inured to it and begin to feel at liberty to express these views themselves.
She must feel hurt by her treatment by the press, but I think what will hurt her more is the knowledge that she can be used to influence people’s attitudes to one another.

“I think appearing on the cover is alright. It's the woke messages throughout about kindness and positivity “

Yep. Curse that kindness and positivity. What we need is more unkindness and negativity. We haven’t got anything like enough of that!

Joyfullittlehippo - I was just thinking the same.

Really? I thought the remit of her role was to visit places, open things, attend things, chat to people, be patron of things.....

Exactly. All of which she has done indefatigably. So why all the vitriol?
Because she is an educated woman who has a brain and wants to use it? Because she is not doing things like royal women from the 1950s? Because she is American? Because she is not just American, but African American?

I think it's mainly misogyny, with a healthy dose of racism among some people.

H and M have chosen to be political. With that comes criticism and scrutiny, along with disagreement from those who disagree with your brand of politics.

Since her wedding Meghan helped launch the Together cookbook and raised half a million for the Grenfell kitchen, embarked on a successful Oz/NZ/Pacific tour, and publicised Smartworks in Vogue and set up a collaboration with British stalwarts M&S and John Lewis to benefit it. Her much-derided banana signing even resulted in One25 received more donations than ever before. Which is not a bad year's work, so I'm unsure why people think she doesn't want to fulfil royal obligations.