The "Royal Racist"

[GrimDamnFanjo]

The discussion is still rumbling on...
Over on the Daily Mail site there's yet another article about whether H&M will name names.
This I found was interestingly written as it only seems to mention one other family member...

@LuluJakey1

Zuluqueen 'I will always believe a person of color to know when something is racist or not. We know from a very young age.. and contrary to the right wing press and some people we do not play the race card.. it doesn’t make us benefit anything. Instead it ramps up the abuse as some people really enjoy defending racism & racist deeds. I believe her.. I believe them. There is a difference between I a mixed race person wondering how my kids will look like & my racist in-laws having concern about how my baby would look like.'

I totally agree with this in relation to most people of colour. However, in all humans there are people who will claim things because they are manipulative and trying to cause trouble, seek attention or support or to damage other people- I think that is the case with Meghan Markle. Harry is just thick, weak and besotted and will accept any idea being drummed into his head by her.

Lol in all the years Meghan experienced racism in the UK press before and after she married Harry, she has never once really called out that racism. She kept her head down & didn’t respond . Just like when MO was called ape in heels she didn’t respond. So I don’t buy the whole Meghan is making things up about racism. Like I said most black / biracial people know that in the UK especially when you call out racism that you have experienced you are likely to receive more abuse from some people , or you get apologists drawing all kinds of scenarios of how you are mistaken. I have seen it on MN over time. So no I don’t believe Meghan is manipulative playing the victim card & that Harry is weak.

Where would Harry's alleged racism when younger have come from? (The incidents attributed to him seem to be documented as having taken place.)

Immediate family? Wider family? Eton? Military?

Then wouldn't those conditions apply to William, too? I'm just pondering, really. No agenda. Just curiosity.

I think the issue of any prejudice is how it makes the person feel, whilst some people can laugh it off others feel offended. In this case it appears that H and M were offended so from their perspective it was racist, although I doubt it was intentional.

@SamiReed1

It really irritates me when people so ignorantly say it 'was just curiosity about skin colour', 'it wasn't racist'. Do any of you not realise that a person of colour KNOWS DARN WELL when it is a racist remark, or something innocuous? Seriously? Do you honestly think we don't know the difference? When a person of colour tells you someone made a racist comment.....BELIEVE THEM! Don't attempt to invalidate our experiences.

This,

I see so many posters talking about how she heard it second hand, as if they, the posters themselves did not hear this 3rd hand, but think they know better than MM, 1. a person of colour who has 2.experienced racism all her life and 3. lived in the palace actually.

Talk about patronising and really incredibly disrespectful to people of colour. Absolutely disgusting !

@Pixxie7

I think the issue of any prejudice is how it makes the person feel, whilst some people can laugh it off others feel offended. In this case it appears that H and M were offended so from their perspective it was racist, although I doubt it was intentional.

What was said to M caused offence to her. And it was H who spoke to her.

So it all depends on whether Harry reported fully and accurately. Given that there seem to be different versions from him on the public domain, his reliability isn't necessarily to be relied on

Oh I agree which is why I said i doubted it was intentional.

People of colour aren't a monolith with a uniform character and personality, just like white people aren't. Some are good, some are bad, and most are somewhere in between - just like every other race. Some are absolutely atrocious excuses for human beings who lie and backstab at every opportunity - those exist in every race. The level of racism required to believe that a person must be 1) telling the truth as they know it, and 2) 100% factually correct in that belief, because their skin is a certain colour is just mind-boggling. If anyone said "She must be lying because she's black," they'd rightly be called out as a racist for it. The same is true of statements like "She must be telling the truth because she's black." If you believe that, you're a racist.

Let's say the comment was racist. It was said to Harry, that would also suggest this relative felt that Harry would be accepting of this. So has Harry engaged in low level Racist comments, behind closed doors? To the point this person felt comfortable to say this to him? Harry clearly hasn't been challenging racisim in his family.

Whatever way this plays out, Harry hasn't been honest somewhere. So no, as a poc, given there were loads of lies in that interview and given its clear he has lied about this situation I don't believe his narrative.

This 100%. As a POC I believe that all extremely wealthy, old-money white families operate with a perfectly acceptable and unspoken level of racism. Even if younger family members are woke or even there are interracial children/grandchildren, this still means that occasional comments made in jest or faux-satire are never to be challenged. Nobody would dare stop the conversation because someone casually said something about a babie's skin colour which of course could also have been innocent. But in those type of families, it probably wasn't.

Harry was almost certainly complicit in some of that. He never openly acknowledged the p* slurs, the nazi uniforms and various other incidents that happened behind closed doors. It seems like he's trying to erase the past by being outspokenly woke now as if to prove he was the good guy from the start.

And of course, I wouldn't be at all surprised if William shared the same attitude. But it's hardly something to be shocked or outraged about? That a white, british ROYAL family might have outdated or colonial views on ethnic minorities? Considering how the boys grew up surrounded by press and privilege, they probably never had the chance to truly change their views on racism like many everyday people do. Neither of them had any close POC friends nor had any remote idea how daily life was like for immigrants.

I see so many posters talking about how she heard it second hand, as if they, the posters themselves did not hear this 3rd hand, but think they know better than MM,
1. a person of colour who has
2.experienced racism all her life and
3. lived in the palace actually.

Talk about patronising and really incredibly disrespectful to people of colour. Absolutely disgusting!

Missing the point.

Because

1. She, appears to not know when it was said even during the interview, she didn't know
2. If he didn't tell her when it happened he either didn't think it was important or decided to hide it from her. Who hides this from their partner when their partner is giving up their entire life to work and live with the family?
3. When he told her, he clearly didn't tell her when it was said. Why not? Because he would have to admit he hid it from her?
4. Chose to tell her when she was at her most vulnerable and let her believe it was said then

So on balance does it really sound like he is a reliable source of this information?

Meghan can feel what was said is racist. Doesn't make her right. Or are do we have to believe him because he is married to a WoC, despite evidence showing him to be untrustworthy?

You can not say that a WoC as a sixth sense about wether something is racist, when the information is given to her by am unreliable source, several months after and only when she was already very distressed.

And yes, sometimes PoC do get stuff wrong. Especially, when the source is unreliable and has their own agenda.

Its really patronising to PoC to tell us we have some sort of weird sixth sense about wether something is racist, when we didn't even hear it and the person who told us clearly isn't telling us for our own benefit or reliable or has hidden information and lied to us before.

This isn't just about 'meghan says its racist so it is'. The main player in this situation is a very very privileged white man, who sat on this info for a long long time. So no, it's not racist because Meghan says it is, because that's saying that the white man involved here must also be giving an accurate representation of the converstation.

And I don't have to believe him, just because he is married to a fellow WoC.

Oh for fucks sake. Both my sisters are mixed race and right up to the birth we were all excited about what colour skin and eyes they would have including their dad who is black. And very interesting it was too. One has bright green eyes and light brown hair and the other has dark eyes and black hair. Neither of them who are in their 40s now have screamed racist at us. They even speculated on the colour of their own kids. Blond hair and blue eyes as it turned out. Genetics are fascinating.

@ Hekatestorch

Very balanced post .

Chances are there are racial undertones, whether intentional or not, because of their privileged background so they might not have a lot of interactions in their close circles with people of colour. If Harry now thinks certain decisions were racially motivated, he might be more aware of it after marrying Meghan.

I do think think as a family they might be able to move past things, but remaining in the public eye, they might not be able to maintain relevance without being active members of the royal family. Harry and Meghan seem to give good speeches, but he will always be Prince Harry even if he doesn’t have any other active titles etc. If they stop reading, for the sake of their sanity, any negative press, or feeding more stories directly or indirectly, they might actually do quite well. They have a charitable foundation which in the US doesn’t have the same level of scrutiny. If they quit jabbering away and maintain a level of mystique and show that they have been able to move on perceived slights etc, it might even show a level of maturity. They can blame the tabloids etc for causing a rift and just move on.

Besides, marrying a person of colour doesn’t mean that this person cannot be racist at all, just as someone who professes to have black friends etc as proof that they’re not racist. One of my American friends, who was born and bred in the US, is married to an African American, he refers himself as the N word, which surprised me, but apparently it’s all about reclaiming the word and something to do with rap culture. But she as a white Caucasian saying the N has racial undertones even if she didn’t mean it that way. So I do believe some people might be racist without realising that they’re being racist.

The other thing that made me curious was that my colleagues in the US, would classify themselves as black as they don’t think they’re Caucasian and they often do not have a box to indicate they’re mixed etc whereas here they’d be classified as mixed race and yet they’d be adamant that they’re just black. They also tend to discuss race more openly or ask someone where they’re from or where they were born whereas I’ve always been told since I was a child that asking such a question is racist as it implies that they’re not from here. I’ve noticed my South African colleagues ask similar questions too. So perhaps there can also be a culture clash?

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

Oh for fucks sake. Both my sisters are mixed race and right up to the birth we were all excited about what colour skin and eyes they would have including their dad who is black. And very interesting it was too. One has bright green eyes and light brown hair and the other has dark eyes and black hair. Neither of them who are in their 40s now have screamed racist at us. They even speculated on the colour of their own kids. Blond hair and blue eyes as it turned out. Genetics are fascinating.

So because you are mixed race that gives you some strange right to speak on behalf of all mixed race people including Meghan and decide whether or not they experienced racism or whether questions about the colour of a child’s skin was in a racist context?

The context in which the question was asked gave them cause for concern. Unless you were there, you have no right to tell them that you know better than them or that you have more right or knowledge to judge whether or not it was racist remark.

It is so ridiculous when a person thinks their race somehow gives them a right to speak on behalf of others of the same race or to assume their experience as said race represents the experience of all people of that race.

I am constantly astounded by these threads and posters who find it so difficult to believe that racist attitudes are held by some members of the RF, given their heritage of European aristocracy, education (or lack of it), privilege, social conditioning etc, given that we know Prince Philip frequently made racist comments and Harry himself before he was "enlightened" did too. Where did these attitudes come from? They didn't just develop in a vacuum.

Perhaps quite a few of us have grandparents or great grandparents who made comments that would be far from socially acceptable today, but for Harry at his age to have made the comments he did, surely demonstrates that those so-called "jokes" were alive and well in ^his^ generation which leads to the conclusion that racism is alive and well currently within his social circle whether it be old Etonians, Sandhurst mates or the hunting, shooting, fishing brigade. I am not saying everyone within the RF and his circle are racist, just that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a few of them definitely are.

I reserve judgement about Harry & Meghan as I probably think there are faults on both sides. Obviously there is a degree of hypocrisy for Harry to be calling out racism when he has been guilty of it himself in the past.

Meghan though is the third in-coming wife with whom the RF has had a falling out, and from that alone one might draw certain conclusions. And I think it's quite likely that she took a long look at what her life would be in the UK as wife of the second son and that, combined with constant and hideous press harassment, and the impact that would have on any future children, and thought "no thanks, I'm going home". It's a shame, but I don't really blame her.

I am not a particular fan of Fergie but it seems pretty cold and mean-spirited to me to have a wife staying separately in a cottage on the family estate during Christmas celebrations while her DC and ex husband have a jolly time with the RF in the main house. Especially when the exes live together normally! And when Fergies's sin was not necessarily adultery itself but getting caught. And that she apparently deserved being ostracised over many years when Andrew's alleged sin(s) are so much more grave? And yet he is protected and effectively, shielded?

The justification for this must come imho from a place of very skewed moral reasoning.

And people forget that Diana was extremely discreet and loyal right up until she published the Andrew Morton book. There were rumours, but none of us were sure about Charles and Camilla until the book confirmed it. Remember that the whole debacle essentially came about because Diana was being asked to "put up and shut up" and effectively live a lie in public, involving her DC, that she and Charles were in a happy marriage, while he enjoyed life with his mistress. Again, to my mind, this demonstrates very skewed standards.

And yet the Queen and the RF are somehow held up to be icons of moral probity and example?

And

@Anothermountain

Great post. I am taken aback at some of the posts on here particularly the one saying that od rich white families 'operate within an acceptable level of racism'.

That just does not wash with me. Just because you're old that's no excuse. I'm old. All of us learn and evolve and that is what the RF should be doing. However, it doesn't bode well for the future when William's household, just in the last year, was the only one to refuse to release staff diversity figures, even when all other households had done so. And all RF and staff are exempt from the race and equality laws that everyone else in this country abides to.

What does that tell anyone?

Surely if they wanted to improve and send out a clear message, they would change that.

So, to me, no ... not looking good.

I am constantly astounded by these threads and posters who find it so difficult to believe that racist attitudes are held by some members of the RF, given their heritage of European aristocracy, education (or lack of it), privilege, social conditioning etc, given that we know Prince Philip frequently made racist comments and Harry himself before he was "enlightened" did too. Where did these attitudes come from? They didn't just develop in a vacuum.

I don't believe it couldn't happen. I feel that given the whole of the circumstances, including Harry's timing, Harry to be manipulative and not a reliable source of this information.

The rest of what they said like inferring Archie wasn't a Prince due to his colour was misleading. Or at best neither of them knew how it works and had jumped to a conclusion.

I am actually shocked that the only incidents that they have mentioned are so full of holes. I really thought there would be more, because it's the Royal Family. Which is why I don't believe Harry. I believe Meghan, in this instance, is saying what she feels to be true.

I do agree there will be fault on both sides.

I think the oddest thing to me, is that Harry and Meghan could get some of the best PR advice in the world. They care what the British public think. They were interviewed and didn't even have straight stories, before the interview.

If you give an interview, that full of untruths that can be proved to be untrue, I don't feel you can expect people to fully believe the rest.

I believe very little of what was said in that interview. I believe the vast majority had some basis in truth but both of them have then extrapolated it to suit an agenda. I don't believe Meghan is being fully manipulated by Harry. But I believe she is in parts. Someone said earlier they both have their own agenda, but they aren't aligned.

I definitely don't think the Royal Family or individuals did nothing wrong. Usually I falling outs, no one has acted perfectly. But I do feel H&M are causing alot of their own problems.

I also, really don't think saying 'someone once said this to me and I told my wife months and months later when she was at her lowest, after she married me and after she gave up her life to join the family, after she got pregnant. But I am not saying who it was' is calling out racisim at all.

It smacks of a privileged white man using the shield of 'racisim should be called out' to appear like the good person, when in actual fact he has just used that information to further his own ends and have a dig.

If he knew they were racist before, he should have challenged them, Meghan should have been told abiutvthis comment, since it was so overtly racisit, straight away. Then she could make a fully informed decision about this huge life decision she was making.

Had they both departed from the Royal Family then and got married and also made the reasons why they were doing this public. That would have been calling out racisim. They would have had far more support.

The context in which the question was asked gave them cause for concern.

The context in which the question was asked to PH (not them) was such a cause of concern for him he did absolutely nothing about it for many months. Then when his wife was at her most vulnerable and her mental well being should have been his first concern he decided that was the right time for him to drop it into the conversation. That is disgusting. When someone is down on the floor you don't keep going.

The 'Relationship' boards are full of this type of behaviour.

I would say he was not that concerned about it at the time (especially given his past) but he chose to use it at a later date to fulfil his own personal agenda and then subsequently fed us the Oprah faux 'I was shocked by it' line.

I don't think he is being genuine.

I agree @StormzyinaTCup - I also can't imagine any decent husband, when their wife tells them they're suicidal, not moving heaven and earth to get her help. Especially when you're as rich & privileged as he is, patron of a mental health charity and numerous members of the RF have received help when they needed it. He instead forced her to go to a black tie, high profile event where she was being photographed by journalists from all over the world.

I fully believe Harry has a lot to answer for in this whole debacle & likely slinging mud at his family is easier than admitting what a shit husband he is!

No matter the rights and wrongs, he clearly didn't prepare her for joining the RF, nor did he properly support her once they were married.

Im not sure the RF would be ready for an heir to throne to marry a properly dark skinned black woman. But Megan is a v pale skinned black woman and Harry is not in line, and he's v pale skinned and ginger.

'Im not sure the RF would be ready for an heir to throne to marry a properly dark skinned black woman. But Megan is a v pale skinned black biracial/half black half white woman and Harry is not in line, and he's v pale skinned and ginger".

Carry on, you're right in your post. Just fixed a couple of things there for you. Sick of this racist one drop bs some people aren't getting.

@StormzyinaTCup all your speculation about why this and why that is irrelevant. That kind of logic is often used to discredit rape victims and other victims of crime who, for whatever reason, decided to report the crime many years later. Who knows why he chewed on it for a while. How ever much you want to question his or her behaviour, it does not mean it did not happen.

I very much believed it happened. As for the many holes in their story, I don’t see them, no matter how much the British media and those who hate them try to discredit their account.

I accept that you and some others will never think well of them and there are others who will. The debate will go round and round with no end in sight. Just people who know very little about the protagonists throwing their theories and assumptions all over the place.

In the end, Meghan and Harry had cemented their place in history. The amount of attention given to them by their haters and those who live them is off the scale. They have also heralded closer scrutiny of the RF and their treatment has no doubt hasten the demise of this ridiculous institution. PA is delivering the death blow.

The RF is an embarrassing outdated institution and their record and history makes the Archie’s skin colour extremely believable. I’d be more surprised, shocked even, if someone said the Royal family did not have a racist bone in them 😁

Even if it is an outdated institution, should it be Meghan and Harry's decision to bring it down now???

@TheOneDropRuleIsRacist

Im not sure the RF would be ready for an heir to throne to marry a properly dark skinned black woman. But Megan is a v pale skinned black woman and Harry is not in line, and he's v pale skinned and ginger.

'Im not sure the RF would be ready for an heir to throne to marry a properly dark skinned black woman. But Megan is a v pale skinned black biracial/half black half white woman and Harry is not in line, and he's v pale skinned and ginger".

Carry on, you're right in your post. Just fixed a couple of things there for you. Sick of this racist one drop bs some people aren't getting.

Not sure what point you're making. We agree I think. My points being 1) William would never have married a woman darker than Meghan. 2) can't imagine that there was concern that Meghan's child would have been too dark. Too dark for what? to be the 7th in line to the throne?

Do we not agree ?

We agree on that, what we don't agree on is calling Meghan a Black woman. She isn't just that anymore than she's a white woman. She's both - biracial/mixed race/half white half black. She's also not "dark" and a Black woman "properly" dark. She's lightskinned/pale as you've said and a dark skinned Black woman is dark-skinned, not "properly" as though there's a special way to be dark-skinned versus what people call 'mixed race dark-skin'.

That's all I'm pointing out but we agree on other things.

I very much believed it happened. As for the many holes in their story, I don’t see them, no matter how much the British media and those who hate them try to discredit their account.

You don't see the whole whole that he said this converstation happened at the beginning and she said it was while she was pregnant?