So the Royal Family isn’t racist?

[Harrysfrostbittentodger]

That’s what I took from Harry’s recent interview. That they didn’t accuse the royal family of being racist in the Oprah interview?!

How are other people viewing this?

So the RF is not racist ,

William is not the one leaking negative stories about Them , neither did he try to talk him out of marrying Meghan , he just warned him.

Its a relative now who voiced concerns about the colour of their unborn child , and not like how it was implied on Oprah , and Meghan said they were several conversations not just one,
it could be anyone , it could be immediate family or extended one out of 20 or 60!

kate and Meghan never got a long, And bickered from the very start, I don’t see how William or Charles are to blame here , you can’t force someone to like another person you have zero interest in , nor can you resent them for not forming this tight bond with them.

so what does he want from them?

And why were posters saying all those horrible things about William ?

and whoever mentioned on a previous post that Harry took ayahuasca, you were right! ,
how did you know that ? You were vilified by so many .

In fairness though, we've not seen a shred of evidence for any of Harry and Meghan's claims either - but we have seen backtracking, contradictions and some proven falsehoods by them.... In addition, Harry seems to have actually confirmed some of the stories they previously claimed were false, inadvertently shooting him and Meghan in the foot.

I don't think her race was an issue for most people - and that's not because I believe racism doesn't exist, and that we live in a wonderful utopia. I think it's because colourism is a real thing. Meghan's skin is so light, she isn't easily recognised as a mixed race woman - most people believed that she was part-Mediterranean, Spanish etc until her ethnic heritage was made known. And as she has previously said herself, she never identified as a POC previously. Of course racism is clearly an issue for some, but I genuinely think it's a minority. Even in the press. What I do think is an issue is a culture clash - I think there could be resistance and bristling to an "uppity" American woman. Meghan has demonstrated herself that she likes to speak out and be heard - I can well imagine that this wasn't received well in an upper class British family where etiquette is held in great reverence. And I think the culture clash also was an issue for journalists, which fed the narrative about her.

For transparency, I'm autistic and justice, honesty and facts matter very much to me indeed. Even if I don't like someone very much, I don't feel good if I'm not being honest about the true situation. So I'm not seeking to pull Meghan down out of personal distaste. I wanted to like her and I initially thought how wonderful it was for them both - but things unravelled, bit by bit. This is genuinely how I see it. I think some of it is her fault, some of it is Harry's fault and I fully expect that some of it was the RF's fault. There's usually three sides to every story. But Harry and Meghan embellishing facts, repeatedly selling private stories, making vague accusations, making really serious accusations - which they're now backtracking on - it's unforgivable, imo.

And as for Andrew, no I don't think it's relevant. He's persona non grata as far as the RF go, and as far as the public go. There's rarely a mention of him anywhere without the phrase "sweaty nonce" popping up. There's absolutely no world in which his alleged crimes have been "ignored". I don't see anyone defending him, or suggesting he should be allowed back into the fold. There's absolutely no comparison between Andrew and a "mixed-race actress". No relevance at all.

I think the "deranged hatred" as you call it for Meghan is because she's someone from outside who's arrived in our country, been loved, and idolised - genuinely. Just look at the wedding. People really thought she'd be wonderful. And then it appears that she's rejected our culture, traditions, and our royal family - while at the same time Harry transformed from a happy, jovial, chatty man into a sullen, angry, man child spouting vitriol at the country he once professed to love. I'm not saying Meghan IS to blame - but to a lot of people she appears to be the catalyst. It's a response to what feels like rejection, disappointment in the change in Harry and of course, a reaction to the fibs, exaggerations and tall stories that her and Harry seem to keep selling to the media. What have we had so far - Oprah, Meghan's podcasts which contained plenty of digs and veiled threats, the Netflix series, Harry's book, two more interviews from Harry - and now there are rumours that Meghan is going to write "her truth" too. Jesus. Enough. I wish them well - but they need to stop courting the media and publicity, while complaining about others doing the same. Their double standards reek of hypocrisy and that's something that never goes down well in this country. Move on, be happy, enjoy their family. All this will die down and eventually blow over. But not if they keep flogging this dead horse.

@FlairBand

As a Poc, to answer your question, I find it offensive that he’s gone into white saviour mode and is mansplaining racism. And I feel gaslit over the whole episode, as though it was just a card they used. It’s also offensive when Meghan capitalises on racism. She doesn’t relate to the average day to day struggles of poc. Such as poor access to healthcare, paid less, more likely to die during hospital procedures, more likely to have a lower standard of living etc. So it really hurts when such privileged rich people exploit something as serious as this. Also, they’re encouraging and creating this dialogue around their sanitised version of racism (which Harry has already downgraded to unconscious bias). Instead of talking about the more serious issues in this debate. It’s a shame as they have a platform they could have used to give real unheard marginalised peoples a voice to speak out. Instead it’s about lip gloss and ikea furniture.

M and H received an award from the Kennedy Foundation for tackling racism within the RF yet they now say the RF are not racist .
Will they hand back the award ?

He’s taken the money from Netflix and the publishers and now has to keep singing for his supper. Apparently it doesn’t matter if he contradicts himself or is proved to be telling only. ‘His own truth’, as long as he keeps slinging mud. A very troubled and not very bright man.

This is actually a genuine question that needs answering.

They're now saying the royal family isn't racist so why did they accept an award for tackling "structural racism within the royal family"?

Why did at no point in the last two years did they point out that the royal family was not racist, and they had not accused them of that? They've been VERY quick to correct any other stories which have appeared about them that have not been accurate.

Harry has roundly criticised the royal family for "silence" and yet he's been silent after he and Meghan effectively accused them of racism - and now he's trying to gaslight the whole world into believing that's not what they were insinuating. If so, why the silence? Why did he think it was OK to make one of the worst possible accusations - or at least very heavily imply it - and then not correct the constant, constant barrage of racist accusations that the family, including the Queen in her final days received? Bearing in mind he thinks the press are so dangerous - he thought it was OK for William, Catherine and their family to come under this kind of highly-charged scrutiny? And say nothing?

Gah. He's not a good person at all.

@RealMcKoy Yes! Exactly! Thank you!

@StalkedByASpider - it's a puzzler.
As Harry said "silence is consent".

Thank you for taking the time to reply @Shazammm that makes a lot of sense, I am not a POC but I want to try to understand. What you say feels the same from my perspective, but I am not the person best placed to understand it from other peoples’ POV.

Absolutely.

So I'm not sure how he explains any of that now....

The backtracking, exaggerations and downright lies are just getting ridiculous now. When will people stop tying themselves in knots to try and make up reasons to defend it all?!

It's perfectly acceptable to say "I like H & M, but I don't think they should have said/done X, Y Z." It's as if everyone is so entrenched in picking a side, it's impossible to admit there may be mistakes or nuances.

This is one of the best posts I have ever seen on Mumsnet and certainly on this subject.

I agree.

Harry and Meghan implied openly in Oprah’s interview that it was the racist remark. I’m white so can’t comment on it. And mainly because I wasn’t there but I saw this fragment of the interview and they definitely implied it and then all newspapers had the headlines about RF being racist. So Harry’s statement yesterday was utter nonsense.

By the way I think that RF is racist, it usually comes along with arrogance.

😁

Me too

Same. Some of it makes for uncomfortable reading tbh but I appreciate, dare I say it, the authenticity 😁 - I can’t think of a better word to be honest. I have a lot of issues with the current (here we go again 😉) narratives around race - finding them so often primarily critical and divisive and with no willingness to operate in good faith or try to find common ground - but that post is extremely informative and explains some of the contradictions I see in Meghan and her “truths” which make me so angry but are difficult to articulate. Thank you for it @RealMcKoy

POC here. He's absurd. In the Anderson Cooper interview, he says he doesn't know whether he was a bigot before he met Meghan. He is on tape calling an army cadet a P* as well as the Nazi uniform stuff. He is now minimising this as unconscious bias, to which he is now awake, thanks to his relationship with Meghan.

Basically he was an unapologetic racist until it suited him not to be. And like any convert to a religion, he's a zealot, preaching to those who have quietly got on with handling their own biases and upsets etc without the need to be harangued by critical race theorists or profiting from victimhood. There's not a person on earth who doesn't have an unconscious bias against others for one thing or another. Race bias is not confined to white people. Blatant racism of the sort Harry is on record for is not unconscious bias. It is conscious, deliberate, calculated and malicious.

@StalkedByASpider

Thanks for the best analysis of this situation I’ve read so far!

Along with everyone else, I couldn’t believe he backtracked on the racism accusation. I still remember Oprah’s jaw dropping when they said it!!

Another example of ‘recollections may vary…”

Such as poor access to healthcare, paid less, more likely to die during hospital procedures, more likely to have a lower standard of living etc. So it really hurts when such privileged rich people exploit something as serious as this.

Meghan could’ve used her pregnancies to highlight the race disparity in maternal mortality (which exists on both sides of the Atlantic, so right up her topical alley!) such a wasted opportunity.

A wasted opportunity is how I’d describe (what we’ve heard from) Harry’s book so far too. It’s just a load of carping on about inconsequential family grievances and very little of public interest or consequence, it’s very navel-gaze-y and doesn’t seem to look outwards or relate anything to a wider scale?

The ‘kill count’ is (imo) the worse bit - of course we all know that the purposeful killing of enemy combatants is an integral part of war, but why not use the experience of active service to talk about the concept of ‘moral injury’ and how former soldiers need supportive mental health care to readjust to civilian life? To talk about the unacceptable domestic violence and suicide rates amongst the military?
Instead it comes across as tasteless bragging over the violent deaths of foreign men (although I acknowledge we’ve not had the full English language context).

I know I can be a bit of a Pollyanna but as someone who has been indifferent to the royals for most of my life, I was actually pretty moved on H&M’s wedding day and thought it might be a lovely thing for modern Britain. I liked that the old rules had been softened over time and that Meg and Harry were able to enjoy that softening and have a church wedding and a white dress (eg Margaret wasn’t allowed to marry her divorced chap, Charles and Camilla had to have a civil wedding) and I liked that the service was more diverse than your usual boring arse CoE stuff and that that diversity was reflective of some of the very best bits of multicultural Britain.

And just a few years on it feels like the H&M story has tossed aside all that hopefulness and js culminating in some sort of sad whomp whomp sound effect.

Even the academic chap who talked about colonialism on their Netflix show has popped up on various YouTube news channels saying (paraphrasing) that it’s time for them to shut up now!

Someone could just have been wondering aloud about the potential appearance and skin colour of their future children and if Meghan wanted to push a racist narrative then all she had to say is they were concerned. When it could have been genuine curiosity. That one word changes everything but we weren’t there so we don’t know. That could have been a conscious decision on her part to make it sound that way and maybe that was why Harry seemed a bit strange when she mentioned it. I don’t think her using the word concerned tells us if it was racist or not.

It is simple. She is dealing with racism in her book. He is dealing with his mum, dysfunctional royals etc. Because that is, of course, how you shed light upon issues close to your heart which urgently need exposure. You see what is the most lucrative way of repackaging them to line your pockets. 😌

He wont reveal the name of the person who made that comment about Archie? Well, I bet she will. Let the suspense build up for another year or so.

Thank you for sharing, it really helps to understand. Also your point about everyone having a bias rings very true, even though I’m not a POC.

Harry excuses his own racism by using the term unconscious bias. Makes himself judge and jury and using this to backtrack on accusations of racism of his family who he thinks will now apologise to him for god knows what

"unconscious bias" is a modern bit of gobbledygook because we have always had both conscious and unconscious biases and been subjected to them by others since the dawn of time. It is part of the human experience.
However, that said, his biases could not have been more conscious so he is lying to rehabilitate his own image on the philanthropy circuit, pure and simple.

Another poc here. I think he grew up in a racist environment and didn’t question the values that surrounded him when he was younger.

A secretary on his father’s staff at Highgrove went to tribunal over the racism she experienced. She lost her case then, quite some time ago, but I don’t think she would lose it now, I found her evidence convincing.

Having married someone who is mixed race, in a family where it’s acceptable for his brother to welcome the Obamas into their apartments with a painting of slave on the wall, and perform an ill-advised, cringe-making colonial tour of the Carribbean - I’d say he’s had a swift initiation into unconscious attitudes, unconscious bias and micro-aggressions.

The reason he’s explaining it now, with relevance to the colour of his baby etc, is that a lot of people don’t get it.

Is it gobbeldegook or clear enough when you see highly qualified women passed over for jobs in favour of distinctly average men by male dominated panels?