Thank you so much to all of you for your thoughtful engagement with my post, even where we may not agree.
@DandyAF you are absolutely right to say Doria has not been mentioned negatively in this thread: I was merely pointing out what you call “historical posts“ to enlighten those interested as to why they may be problematic. But I take you point, absolutely.
I would also hate to dismiss everyone as racist, that’s simply not the case, I did though want to point out some unconscious biases that posters may not be aware of.
@yolofish thanks for reconsidering your post but again you double down: so let me say again that not every woman in SA lives in a shanty town. Meghan met many women who were students for instance, and government officials, NGO workers etc and there were many positive comments about her in the SA press from women from all walks of life. If you can get your head around this basic fact, that black women come in all sorts of packages, you may understand why, to those who are ambitious and come from humble backgrounds, Meghan might be both inspirational and aspirational. Again, not every Black woman lives in a shanty town.
But it is comments like @PelicanPie that also really trouble me.
Race is a social construct that is not just about how individuals perceive others. It is about how entire societies perceive them. So it is extremely insulting, and indeed jaw dropping, to dismiss Meghan as “half white” in a context where entire societies, their Constitutions, their laws, a whole slave trade on three continents, Jim Crow etc, has evolved around the blackness of Africans and what that blackness, and degrees of blackness, means.
Please, please, I ask you to read up on the one drop rule, think about the psychological effects of being told that just one drop of black blood makes you black, think about the system of apartheid in my own country, about colourism in the Caribbean, indeed, think what it means that entire nations in the Caribbean are made up of the descendants of African slaves.
Race issues run deep for black people and are and have been deeply scarring.
I wish it were as simple as “we are all part of the human race” but unfortunately it really isn’t. And to dismiss people whose entire lives has been shaped by their race, or to refuse to accept how they identify themselves, is just not right.
I will get off the soapbox now, and continue my petition for @MNHQ for a Race and Racism board which goes beyond the issues raised in this and other threads.
Thanks so much again and enjoy the rest of the discussion.