Even as a child Harry was racist

[MamoruHisaishi]

How many times can Harry be excused as having unconscious bias? He was already making fun of people’s accents even as a child.

According to a new book that's coming out from Robert Jobson:

When he was a little boy, around eight years old, his mother took him and William for a ride on a London bus as a treat, arranged by her police protection officer Inspector Ken Wharfe.

On the bus, Diana had to tell Harry to stop mimicking the Sikh bus conductor’s pronounced Punjabi accent every time a passenger pressed the bell to get off. The conductor, a jovial chap wearing a bright yellow turban, was relaxed about Harry’s casual racism, but Diana was so mortified that she eventually told Ken Wharfe to abandon the trip.

Diana, Ken, William and Harry all got off at Green Park and Diana immediately smacked Harry and told him: ‘Don’t you ever do that again.’

Afterwards, she made Harry write to Inspector Wharfe to apologise for his behaviour and for spoiling the day he’d arranged for the boys.
I have spoken to Wharfe, who confirms the incident, and I have also seen the letter, still in his possession, in which Harry jokes about the phrase he used.

As he was a child at the time, he can probably be forgiven — but the incident demonstrates that on one issue at least, Diana was in complete agreement with Charles. She would not tolerate any form of racism from their two sons.

When that child grows up to continue saying and doing racist things I think that’s a problem. It’s especially problematic when that said child is also a famous figure who has now claimed the mantle of fighting racism.

Tbf if Harry and William had been working class dc in this family dynamic where the parents had such a toxic relationship then I think we’d all be excusing their awful behaviour.
A TA would have been supporting Harry during lessons.
And when Uncle Andrew’s past demeanours came to light the staff would not be surprised .

I guess people have to work overtime to distract from the Cost of The Crown series and this: Slavery & The Royal Family

Well, @MamoruHisaishi you say:

As a person of colour from a commonwealth country who still has the royal family as the head of the country

I don't mean to question your bona fides, and you may just be too offended at something that happened when Harry was a child to post coherently, but a few pointers:

Firstly, it's Commonwealth, not commonwealth with a small c because "a commonwealth" with a small c means something different from the Commonwealth with a large C.

Secondly, we talk of Head of State, not head of the country. This is because there is a different between a country and a state. (Wales and Scotland for instance are considered countries but they are part of the state called the UK) Interestingly, there is also a difference between a nation and a country because while most nations have countries, not all nations have countries: the Zulu nation, for instance, is a nation without a country that exists within the state of South Africa. One could also say the long-suffering people of Palestine are a nation without either a country or a state that is recognised by all states.

Finally, it's not the entire Royal Family that is Head of State, as you state, it is just one person, the monarch. So Harry is not Head of State, nor for that matter is anyone other than Charles.

But even accepting that you are too offended to post coherently, as a fellow person of colour from a Commonwealth country (one made up of several nations incidentally, but that's colonialism for you!) that still has a member of the royal family as the Head of State, I can state with absolute certainty that what Harry supposedly did as a child aged 8 is not something that will register with most people.

In fact, just this morning, I held a poll in my Commonwealth country and 100% of the people who responded think that your post is silly and ridiculous, and your outrage is manufactured.

My poll indicates further that people are much more interested in the welcome news that Charles is willing to support an investigation into slavery and its links to the Royal Family.

My poll also indicates that centuries of slavery followed by colonialism have had a far bigger impact on Commonwealth countries, states and nations than Harry mimicking an accent on a bus in London at the age of 8, and getting smacked by his mother for it.

I look forward to he next bashing thread: Hint: keep an eye on the Daily Mail. There is a daily menu to choose from.

I wish we could report people for "needing to get a life"

This is one of them. Too much screen time. Go outside. Your MH is showing :(

My poll indicates further that people are much more interested in the welcome news that Charles is willing to support an investigation into slavery and its links to the Royal Family.

Absolutely! I’m also reading right now an interesting Guardian piece on thee royal jewels and in particular ones stolen ( and not yet returned ) from India.

My poll indicates further that people are much more interested in the welcome news that Charles is willing to support an investigation into slavery and its links to the Royal Family.

Yes I will be following this with interest, I am pleased this is a start. Does this mean any previous research has not been supported by the RF.

If we return the diamonds, do you think we can stop paying millions and millions of taxpayer money into supporting the Indian economy and have the money we've being paying for decades, returned to us? We sure need it with a cost of living crisis.

He called Asian person at Sandhurst the P-word when he was much older.

To answer the thread. I could forgive an 8 yo Harry because he was then taught what he did was wrong. I've no doubt he got this from school, because that's where mine did, not from their home environment.

However an adult Harry hadn't learned his lesson as he was still a racist in his army days. Basically racism is founded on superiority and arrogance. Harry has that in abundance. Then and now,

Harry didn’t have good examples to look up to in terms of racism did he? Here’s some of the things Prince Philip has said, that I don’t recall him apologising for:

-If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed” (to a group of British students in China )
-Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?” (to a wealthy islander in the Cayman Islands).
-How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test” (to a Scottish driving instructor).
-It looks as if it was put in by an Indian” (referring to an old-fashioned fuse box in a factory near Edinburgh).
-Still throwing spears?” (question put to an Aboriginal Australian during a visit).
-There’s a lot of your family in tonight” (after looking at the name badge of businessman Atul Patel at a Palace reception for British Indians).
-The Philippines must be half-empty as you’re all here running the NHS” (on meeting a Filipino nurse at Luton and Dunstable Hospital).

Sure, you can have your millions and millions back.

Just as long as you also pay back the billions that were extracted from the Asian and African colonies over decades and decades, and contributed to the UK economy.

So you paid your taxes. Bully for you. Countless others paid with their actual lives.

Well that says it all...

Talking of which, isn’t there a lawsuit going on against the Wail, with Harry being one of those suing?

I’ll highlight one particularly gross remark, made as an adult and husband to the Queen:

If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed
Prince Philip, to a group of British students in China.

Yeah he was a terrible racist ,.

This post is some kind of joke, right?

You realise that the East India Company was formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India. Incorporated by royal charter in 1600, it was started as a monopolistic trading body so that UK could participate in the East Indian spice trade. It also traded cotton, silk, indigo, saltpeter, and tea and transported slaves. It acted as an agent of British imperialism in India.

This is one of the ways we imported slavery. If you were going to equal things out, we would have to pay India millions for another north of 300yrs. How do you think this country got so rich. From plundering other continents, that's how.

OP, inadvertently your silly little thread only highlights what a racist institution Harry grew up in, where casual racism seems the norm. Because even as a grown up, H was so used to this culture, he carried on being this way. It was only with meeting MM and having a poc family that he 'walked in someone else's shoes' and decided to defend those who suffer - this can only be a good thing.

It also shows Diana as a good mum (would not smack a child, but that was the way back in those day, nowadays she would have had a stern word), but it was appropriate that she cancelled the trip and demanded an apology letter. It just confirms she was the good mum with a gentle soul that we all thought.

Goodness me, I remember these 'gaffes' .

If true he learned the racism from someone close to him. Children are not born racist. And William will have had the same childhood exposure to racism being acceptable that Harry obviously did.

I agree that it shows Diana was an active parent. This was not a case of kids brought up by the nannies only to be handed to the parents to pose for photos

Prince Philip’s slitty-eyed comment was a retort to the Chinese saying to their dc “if you stay in the West you will get round eyes”.

Prince Philip’s slitty-eyed comment was a retort to the Chinese saying to their dc “if you stay in the West you will get round eyes”.

And the rest - were they also tit for tat?

Did a Chinese person do that in front of Prince P?

Prince Philip’s slitty-eyed comment was a retort to the Chinese saying to their dc “if you stay in the West you will get round eyes”.

What?