Why isn't depressing seated racism on MN challenged more?

[FloweryCurtainTwitcher]

So. I am not black but I am not white. My great grandparents (as far as I know) were EE Jewish, black African , white African, Irish, North African and white British x3 . One of my parents was born and raised in West Africa until age 15ish.

As a child growing up in white rural England I was bullied about my big lips (they are luscious- no lip filler required here) and my thick black hair that has a definite kink (Jewish or African- who knows? Irish maybe? ). I didn't really think about my ethnicity until I grew up and reflected a bit more about it. But I did know that attacking people because of how they looked was wrong.

I find the subcultural of racism on MN unacceptable. The threads this weekend about Meghan Markle are indicative `(people claiming they are not racists they just dont like her- for lots of ridiculous reasons- basically she is an independent black woman )

I believe that we should all challenge deeply embedded racism constantly regardless of our ethnicity. Not just the National Front type stuff which is explicit but the deep societal implicit racism which underpins our society.

So why does no-one ever call it out on MN- why are so many posts with inherent racist views allowed to go unchallenged? Why isnt every post with racist undertones receiving hundreds of reports?

Is it pointless? Is MN like the MET police and institutionally racist ?

(5 years of commuting through elephant and castle- everyday saw MET police pull someone over. ONCE only were they not black- so 1000 approx stops- only 1 white)

@lightisnotwhite

She’s just comes across as very disingenuous, everything is for show or effect. It’s not irrational it’s how she comes across.

You state as fact that "everything is for show or effect".

How do you know that?

How do you know she isn't genuinely 'beaming' because she is happy?

but for poor Kate, she got thrown under a bus, and the only family member who was,, in front of the whole world and made to look like a total cow. Meghan gave away personal detail about the gift of flowers in order to suggest that Kate knew she was wrong; Meghan's feelings were hurt! I expect that in the RF, lots of times feelings get hurt ( big deal) , and you have to wear tights for formal events, if you like it or not and even if it's hot and sunny. She must have certainly upset Kate. The message from Meghan was The Queen is good and Prince Philip too ... and they like me and support me, but that other commoner Catherine is a total piece of work who stays popular in the press by engineering things so I look bad. In my opinion, .what a horrid thing of M to do and I hope she regrets doing it.

For poor Kate? I think that is extremely ironic.

Kate allowed Meghan to be seen as the bad guy because it suited her narrative. She threw Meghan under the bus. She allowed the whole wildfire of hate to grow and grow and grow. Kate could have stepped in to correct the record at any time.

She chose not to. She threw Meghan under the bus and she KNEW what she was doing, that she was allowing Meghan to be abused. So, Meghan was in the end, forced to stand up and correct the narrative. And she's the bad one? How did that even happen? You know, it's like if someone at school spreads lies about a classmate, and/or sits back and doesn't correct it. Then, when the bullied victim speaks out and says what really happened, it is the victim who is attacked for standing up for themselves and correcting the narrative. That, is what happened here.

And it is so very, very, deeply unfair.

@MidnightMeltdown

as a white person I very rarely comment on threads on this board. I do however have a mixed race son. As much as I, as a white person, think his white half is as important as his black half, I am fully aware that the world looks at him and sees a young black man. More importantly, when looks in the mirror he sees a young black man. That is what he is so I have raised him to be proud of his heritage.

No different to Meghan Markle.

What in god's name is disingenuous about her smile? What a ridiculous criticism.

Do you have the perfect smile, or do you look sneery? Who knows. How easy it is to make up nonsense like this.

and they like me and support me, but that other commoner Catherine is a total piece of work who stays popular in the press by engineering things so I look bad. In my opinion, .what a horrid thing of M to do and I hope she regrets doing it

She said this? Show me where.

If this was of MM the people who dislike her would say she was overacting by 'beaming' and that a blouse costing almost £150 (when she knows the cost of everything she wears is reported) is tone deaf considering people in this country currently are choosing between heating and eating, that she was using her kids for show etc etc

Ditto the hypocrisy of using of helicopters and probate planes while publicly saying everyone should be more conscious of the environment.

Ditto when she held her bump it was 'protective' but when MM did so it was performative and OTT by many people include plenty on Mumsnet.

On and on the double standards go...

Roussette.

In the interview with Oprah, Meghan expressed that the Queen is supportive of her and that they have a natural relationship in which she and Harry will tend to just pick up the phone and chat; and it is spontaneous and feels good, and there is non of the artifice which surrounds other features of communication between Queen and family members. The impression put across was that M and H are most certainly not persona non gratis, and have not a problem at all
with the actions and interactions with the most senior Royals.
The specific amount of detail Meghan gave about the misunderstanding with Kate, was quite in contrast to the lack of specifics and attempt at some degree of privacy and finer reserve, elsewhere in the interview. Yes, she confirmed - the fall-out happened and, yes, it was about a bridesmaid outfit. We were told not only that Kate had upset Meghan, but that she had not made a point of correcting gossip stories in order to show that Meghan was not somebody who hurts people.

Actually, mostly, royal and politician gossip stories are not corrected. I can see why this is: you encourage newspapers to publish tittle tattle and for members of the public to sell it to the papers. It's not in the interest of senior figures to acknowledge these kinds of stories. It also makes it seem that you are over-invested in your own personal dignity, if you bother about small, fairly silly stories being printed about you. The Queen, for instance, didn't respond to stories in the foreign press about Philip having affairs by issuing a statement saying her husband is not being unfaithful.

Since a trades professional is reputed to have been the source of the bridesmaid dress story, we many as well consider whether their version of events has voracity - as it is the case that Meghan has chosen to dignify aspects of the story with the stamp of truth. That trades professional said that Catherine was in tears leaving the fitting. Why not believe that? Maybe, both women were upset. Maybe wedding planning is tense, when the wedding is in front of the world.

We don't know what happened - but we do know Meghan didn't need to say anything: the event was too insignificant to make her look really unpleasant, and she certainly got her own back by saying one of the Royals - not Queen Elizabeth or Prince Philip, but another senior one - is a racist. I suppose that comment influenced some of the negative responses to the Commonwealth Tour.

Whatever the outcome for the Royal Family, it was mean of Meghan to put Catherine individually in the hot seat, and to make it unequivocally clear that Catherine could have been nice, but in Meghan's estimation, chose not to be. Serious washing dirty laundry in public with the aim of de-stabilising the popularity of one species person.

Wow, that’s appalling

DiverseOpinions

I don't agree. But thank you for putting across your thoughts on it.

@Roussette

Well it may be ridiculous but thats true of many likes and dislikes. I also dislike Daniel Craig because he pouts and I can’t stand Suzanna Reid because she’s smug. Not met any of them and sure they’re all lovely so clearly it’s “made up nonsense” .
They just annoy me.
I think you’d be lying if you said there weren’t people that annoyed you based on nothing much too.

So we're not allowed to dislike Meghan Markle, and if we do it's because we're racists? Nah OP.

Of course there are people who annoy me. Famous people. Slebs. Different ones.

But the difference is.... I don't go on threads and bollock them. One particular person quite regularly is the subject of a thread, I deliberately swerve it. I don't read it. I don't comment on it. I avoid it like a plague.

Nowhere do I go and slag someone off even if I am not keen on that person.

The only exception is Johnson and the Government and the damage they are doing to the country, but that's democracy.

A personal unwarranted character assassination of someone I don't know... never ever.

I don't agree that the Met is 'institutionally racist' either.

I don't know how anyone who has done any research whatsoever can hold this view.

The stats speak for themselves so I'll resist saying any more on the subject:

Just 5% of Metropolitan Police officers disciplined for racism towards fellow officers in recent years were sacked.
Four officers of the 76 who had disciplinary proceedings for racism against their colleagues upheld were dismissed without notice between 2017 and 2021, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests reveal.
Three further officers resigned or retired during this period after claims against them for racism were upheld

To be honest with regards to the Meghan Markle posts I do report some but it seems almost pointless. Like sweeping up rice or sand your kids have spilled. No matter how much you sweep sweep sweep you’ll turn around and step on another piece of rice. And it feels like you’re a lone voice in a sea - if everyone else agrees then it’s hard to even make them see your point.

I think all this obsession with the royal family is embarrassing and stupid anyway, but the vitriol towards a random actress (who as far as I’m aware has never really done anything wrong) is just horrific. I remember on a thread about crime once (I forget what it was about, maybe a celeb who had been convicted of something) someone brought her up. People act like she’s some terrible villain or criminal, when in reality she’s an actress from a TV show who married a man and had kids. That’s her great ‘crime.’ It’s ridiculous.

And as for ‘preaching to us little people double standards’ well yeah. That’s the entire royal family and, if we’re honest, every single celebrity ever basically. That’s what they do. They’re out of touch and self involved. That’s like a requirement of being in the royal family. Like Kate saying ‘oh lockdown was so hard for everyone, we managed by taking the kids out to play in the lake.’ Well we have a stone yard Kate, but thanks for that.

It’s kind of the culture of it on mumsnet I think. Of course if someone just said ‘hmm I don’t really like Meghan Markle’ I’d just think ‘eh you can’t please everyone.’

But it’s the embarrassingly slavish fawning over Kate and ‘Wills’ and gorgeous little George and beautiful Charlotte and cheeky little Louis and how cute are they at this event and that event and how classy is Kate and awww look at Louis’ birthday blah blah blah ad naseum followed immediately by look at that trashy Meghan trying to get publicity. Look at her stupid family photo for Christmas trying to get our attention and look how stupidly it’s posed and how stupid they all look and this and that and the next and the next.

I dislike all the royal family. But I don’t slavishly adore them while placing Meghan Markle in this weird position of the ‘villain’ who stole Harry away and ‘made him’ turn against his family. I mean you can just ignore them? You don’t know her, you have no clue of anything about her, so why the constant hatred to the point she’s pulled up on threads that have nothing to do with her and everything she does including a family Christmas photo is picked apart to be criticised?

@Kanaloa

What a balanced post, totally agree

On MM some posters have actually got worse and there's a lot of trolls and I imagine PBPs because the vile lies, theories and made up stuff about her is off the scale. I report when it is totally untrue and defamatory. Calling out the lies usually then results in personal attacks on me but hey, then I know they've got nothing truthful to offer because that is always the modus operandi

Agree. W&K are saints, M&H are spawn of the devil. Apparently
I honestly think some people need help with their obsession about M&H, it's turned unhealthy for some

Also - I know this thread is about Meghan Markle/racism around that - but I also see it in the baby names threads. Certain names are trashed in a really sneery and disgusting way, followed by suggestions of why don’t you choose a nice not chavvy name like William or Martha. It’s like a total small mindedness. Of course, that could easily be the disgusting classism on mumsnet at play (since I see it with Irish and American names too) but many of the names are ones I associate with mixed race/different cultures - they’re unfamiliar because they’re not the English-accepted Thomas or Olivia but will be decried as ‘chavvy’ or ‘tacky.’

Yeah. But it’s just totally exhausting to point out that actually it’s a bit weird to start an entire thread (as there was last year I believe) about how stupid and awful a family’s Christmas photo is. Literally just a photo of a man and woman and their two little kids but from the vitriol spouted you’d think they’d publicised a photo of them killing puppies or something!

I think I remember that thread. Awful stuff like saying they'd dyed Archie's hair and saying it like it was true! Not as a joke. But as fact.
Which is why I say it's obsessive and unhealthy and very weird

I also think you have to look at the history of comments on MN about Meghan; the vitriol goes way back before she and Harry left the UK. There were racists dog whistles all over MN about her, from the earliest days. The reason that my user name has "redux" in it is that I de-registered and left MN because of the racism that went unchecked, after reporting several posts that were allowed to stand. So many of us are especially alert when nasty posts crop up about her; there is a history there, and it's not a pretty one.

Totally agree Seneca. It's been going on since they were dating. Really unpleasant some of it. Then it just built up and up and here we are, a pulled thread today that had vile stuff in it

It’s a deep seated ‘Fear of a Black Planet’. An innate fear that brown-skinned people will take back what was stolen from them.
How else can anybody be so hateful, ugly and vile to people they do not know and who have done absolutely nothing to them, except to have the audacity to breathe alongside them on this planet???
Brown-skinned people whose mere presence threatens the whitewashed history of the UK and the World’s
wealth.

They like us to stay quiet, so they can continue to live in their delusional whitewashed bubble of ignorance.
Don’t get uppity now. Stay down there.

MM, a Black women marrying into the RF is seen as a threat to the RF/the status quo/the foundation of the British class system of divide and conquer. Do we even need to mention Prince Andrew and all the other drama that came before? I
f dysfunction was a family.
How can anyone be proud of that mess? How can anyone view that as a highly regarded institution?
It’s just embarrassing. Delusion and gaslighting in abundance.

I’d go NC if my family acted like MM’s Father’s side of the family.

Current thread. Person with tourettes repeatedly shouts n-word slur at black person and the entire thread is how awful it must be for the person with tourettes. Not the person being screamed a racial slur at. Shocking.

It’s a deep seated ‘Fear of a Black Planet’.

Yep watch all sectors of the British media when they report or talk about China giving countries that are majority black or brown money.

One white professor called Newsnight out on their colonial mindset.