Kate - walkabout with Harry & Meghan after Queen’s death one of the hardest things she’d done.

[UserOfManyPseudonyms]

Thought she’d shot daggers at Meghan when she got out of the car!

Wonder why that was?

That was before the Netflix doc and Spare release as well.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-11949903/amp/Kate-says-Windsor-walkabout-Harry-Meghan-hardest-thing-do.html

Coincidence this is being published now before H&M confirm if they’re going to accept the invite to the coronation?

Yup he's that bad.

Thomas Markle Jr.Thomas Wayne Markle Jr. (also known as Tom Markle Jr.) is the older paternal half-brother of the Duchess of Sussex, and the son of Thomas Markle Sr. and Roslyn Markle (née Loveless).[51] He was born on 17 September 1966 in Los Angeles, and as of 2018 lived in Grants Pass, Oregon, with his fiancée Darlene Blount.[32] He was married to Tracy Dooley until their divorce in 2001 and then to Johannes Rawha until their divorce in 2009.[27] He and Tracy Dooley have two sons, Thomas and Tyler Dooley.[27] He works as a window fitter. He was arrested in January 2017 after threateningly holding a gun to Blount's head during an argument while he was under the influence of alcohol.[23][52] Later in 2018, following another incident, Blount claimed in a police call that "Markle was beating himself up" and "drinking", saying that he "was not mentally fit". Blount was arrested by the police on assault charges, but was later released.[53] The couple was involved in another domestic violence incident in July 2018 after which Blount was arrested again and released "after posting bail".[53]
Thomas Markle Jr. was not invited to the wedding of Prince Harry and his half-sister, and at the time of the wedding, he had not seen her for about seven years.[32] In an interview with the Daily Mirror in April 2018, Markle called his half-sister a "phony" who had "turned into a different person" and "forgotten her roots and her family" since becoming famous.[54] He then sent Prince Harry a letter, asking him to call off the wedding – saying the forthcoming wedding would be "the biggest mistake in Royal Wedding History", criticizing his half-sister's treatment of Thomas Markle Sr. by saying she had been "using her own father until he's bankrupt", and calling her "a jaded, shallow, conceited woman".[55] However, Markle later wrote another letter in which he told his half-sister he was "sorry for venting my frustrations" after not being invited to the wedding and that he was "very proud" of her and wanted her "to have a great wedding and a long future with Prince Harry".[56] After their father's relationship with Meghan soured following his multiple paid interviews, Markle Jr. said on Daily Mirror that "she is abusing his love for her, ... It's selfish, cruel even".[37]
In August 2021, it was confirmed that Markle Jr. would star in the Australian reality television series Big Brother VIP.[57]

I have no words.

Apart from that the Markles are clear 100% scumbags.

What did I just watch from a grown man. Jeezus.

Wow, that's so lucky for Kate isn't it!
So many of us have to endure extremely painful gatherings at funeral and weddings due to errant family members.

Kate is so lucky she has escaped that in her immediate family.

Yes Kate has a bolt hole to escape to for some sanity and a bonus of a close supportive family.

I think the older markles are incredible jealous of Megan and I can imagine the sheer vitriol displayed towards Doria for being black and then their child goes into the royal family. What a blow.

However whilst the mania against Megan is real I just don't buy it on race. I think first and foremost it's misogyny and modern witch hunting.

Had she been white does anyone think she would be getting an easier time

Yes. Race is absolutely a factor.

I'm glad for all the people calling out the vile treatment of Doria in this thread. Well done.

But few have to do this under the glare of the media, with camera lenses trained on your facial features and with discussion forums full of really nasty and anonymous comments on her looks, marriage, lifestyle, children and every move. People's nastiness about people in the public eye is eye watering.

@notanotheroneagain

Who is a weird weird woman?

However whilst the mania against Megan is real I just don't buy it on race. I think first and foremost it's misogyny and modern witch hunting.

There have been academic articles written about the racism Meghan Markle has had to endure. What has happened and why it has happened. A Google search will give you many to choose from.

Some instances of racism:

an image of a monkey presented as being Archie

British police investigating as a hate crime a suspicious package sent to Harry and Meghan.

a male found guilty and being sent to prison for threatening Harry - for marrying Meghan and diluting the ‘pure Royal blood.’

Tabloid media headlines saying amongst other things, that Megan was ‘straight outta Compton,’ and that she was ‘gangsta.’

Clarkson’s vile article that was racist, misogynistic in which he said he lay awake imagining Meghan being subjected to great humiliation in the form of a walk of shame, naked, being pelted with shit, through every town in England.

It’s true that all the women who have married into the Royal family since, and including Diana, have faced awful intrusions by the press, called all manner of things, but Meghan has also endured racism.

With social media becoming a power the ante was upped with Kate, and anonymous posters got to give their misogynistic opinions, but with Meghan it had, very very often, a racial element to it.

You don’t have to search far on the internet to find the gif of Archie, another one is a drawing of a ‘line of Meghan caricatures’ in different outfits, her skin darkened and her mouth made huge.

The BBC spoof of Meghan as a rough talking woman, from a lowly background, with a knife threatening ‘to cut’ Kate Middleton. The BBC?

Thats only off the top of my head, and only a portion of it.

I feel like I’m writing into a bit of a void. I’ve seen poster after poster bring these (and other) examples to our attention. Those that see that it is racism don’t need to read about these examples (they well and truly know of them, and could list more that I don’t know even know about). And most of those who don’t see the racism (or refuse to see it) seem to not bother to remember them and all the other examples.

KM had the hardest time walking with MM, but has been perfectly happy with walking with Andrew!

Indeed. Why aren’t the papers writing about that?

I sincerely hope it's not reverse racism and Thomas is evil because he is white, and Doria an angel because she is black?

‘Reverse racism’ is not a thing.

Very few people (I know there are some) are saying the criticism Meghan receives is only because of racism. She absolutely would be having a terrible time of is if she were white. There is however is criticism that happens at the intersection between her identities as black and as a woman (so racism and sexism) - this particular issue is as old as time see Diane Abbott for example and Sojourner Truths speech in the 1800s “Ain’t I am woman?”.

Great list @Morestrangerthings

@MyDarlingClementine

You cannot legislate against people hating others because of their race, but it becomes problematic when the hatred, dislike, disdain or whatever it is leads to harmful actions against those people, including discriminatory action against them.

Meghan received discriminatory treatment in the press because she was often criticised for the very same things that Kate Middleton was praised for. If it had happened just once or twice, it might be called a one off, but it happened so constantly that there is a famous Buzzfeed article comparing headline the coverage by headline, often from the same papers.

What I found particularly disturbing, and what definitely went beyond misogyny and witch hunting was the active malice in some of the coverage.

Meghan was linked to global murders because she ate avocados, Meghan was linked to terrorism because she worked with the Hubb Kitchen and with Muslim women who rented space from the Al Manaar mosque. Meghan was also accused of endangering the life of a child: there was a jaw dropping headline that her choice of flowers could have killed Charlotte, the same flowers that when carried by Kate Middleton in her own bridal bouquet, were praised as a tribute to Diana or the Queen or both.

Then there was the unleashing of the angry black woman trope in the "Meghan made Kate Cry" story, which we now know was not only untrue, but more complex than the simplistic notion of an aggressive Meghan attacking a fragile Kate.

The only thing that explains why a woman of colour would receive malicious, discriminatory headlines that are engineered to set her up as a hate figure is race, particularly when the white woman who is set up as her rival receives positive coverage for the same things she is lambasted for, from wearing dark nail polish, editing a magazine, to touching her own pregnant body.

A great example of how posters can, perhaps unconsciously, apply different standards depending on race is this very thread: the poster called @purpledalmation talked about "mistakes" made by Meghan's black parent (who has not put a foot wrong) while erasing Doria from Meghan's life and claiming falsely that Meghan has never talked about her. At the same time, she minimises the horrific actions of the white parent.

When we apply not only different, but harsher standards to the behaviour of black people than we do to the same behaviour when done by white people, it is a form of discriminatory racism.

Well said @MrsMaxDeWinter .

I'm annoyingly away from my laptop where I have a montage of the conflicting headlines between Meghan and Kate, so can't post it. What's the point anyway. It will get ignored by those who should be commenting on it, as it has the other times I've shown it.
Bump touching, wedding flowers, one sleeve dresses, avocados, pockets in dresses..the list is endless.
Where's the outcry about Kate wearing dark nail varnish on Easter Sunday? Because there sure was one in the press and on here when Meghan did. You'd think she was drowning cats.

Nothing was right and for no reason

I quote back to a poster who said on here about a month ago "I knew she was trouble the minute I saw her in the engagement interview". She didn't have a chance, but listen up folks, she's barely been seen for about four months now, so you've got nothing, absolutely nothing to criticise her about unless you bring up marriage vows, bump touching, or her smiling 3 years ago.

@skullbabe

Yes, well put.

As an anecdote I have 3 close friends one of whom is married to a black man who immediately goes from 0 to 10 when anything to do with Harry or Megan is mentioned. She truly hates them and I try not to mention them or change the subject if she does.

Sorry all three friends are deeply hating of Megan and none of them have ever mentioned a racist word.

It's all about her being controlling, conniving, scheming.... Like the actual witch hunt stuff.

I imagine if she was white but from Australia it would be her convict heritage racked over coals. However of course some people will be racist who comment.

Of course her heritage will be an issue for some people, and will be at the core of their intense dislike/ hatred of her. To say otherwise is willful, or at least disingenuous. Very few people will actually come out and say it is because she is half black, in real life. It does not mean that they do not have a problem with that fact, and her marrying into the royal family, oh boy. She definitely suffers from misogynoir. Something that Kate will never have to experience.

misogynoir
noun

1. dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against black women.
2. "misogynoir shows how sexism and racism manifest in black women's lives to create intersecting forms of oppression"

It's complicated by the fact that she isn't a perfect victim, saintly in everything she does. But who is?

The criticism levelled at her goes far, far beyond anything she's actually done (been a bit tone deaf sometimes, fallen out with her family as if that's any of our business, been a bit hypocritical in how far in or out of royalty she wants to be - things that her husband is just as guilty of, and who actually was more equipped to know better). It's all the same stereotypes that have been levelled at black women for God knows how long.

When we apply not only different, but harsher standards to the behaviour of black people than we do to the same behaviour when done by white people, it is a form of discriminatory racism.

This ^ I actually find it weird that this needs to be said. It’s so obvious and the buzz feed article at least made it super clear and that was everywhere. I struggle to accept anyone claiming this isn’t about race does so honestly.

Sorry all three friends are deeply hating of Megan and none of them have ever mentioned a racist word.

What point do you think you’re making with this? Did you read the previous comments? Clearly outlining why it is about race.

Rousette - excellent post.

All new members of the royal family go through it but Meghan had additional nastiness because of her colour; some of the things the media printed was unbelievably dreadful, I thought I'd heard everything but it shocked me, plus a royal family member who remains nameless (but some know who she is), wondering if Archie would look 'coloured'. I certainly think many courtiers were disapproving and dismissive of her and they leaked things to the press so they could manipulate her popularity status. They are often sly people, we've seen and read about that in different situations with other royals.

If we think about it, the couple have not actually done anything wrong. When they were here they did their best and it went down well with the people they met.

Since leaving they have still been hounded by the media with ridiculous things said about them. One cannot blame them for wanting to set the record straight.

Perhaps now they can live their lives and fulfill their potential. Both were involved in humanitarian work before they got together, indeed that was part of their mutual attraction, and they will continue to do that as well as making their own money. Good luck to them.

Harry will of course miss his country, family and friends but there's no reason why he shouldn't come back here from time to time. Some family and friends have already visited he and Meghan in LA, plus they've made new friends. They are living in a beautiful place and have many advantages which I'm sure they appreciate and enjoy. Long may it continue.

Going back to the media, they said awful things about Doria which she did not deserve. Nobody is perfect but she and Thomas co-parented Meghan very well and Doria is a comforting, stable figure in Meghan, Harry and the children's lives.

I did feel sorry for Thomas at one time because of how he was manipulated by the press, however he didn't have to lie and publicise his daughter's letter. He definitely crossed the line which must be very sad for Meghan who had adored him. As for his other children, words fail me. I am very glad that Meghan's niece (S Markle's daughter, Ashleigh), is back her life because she was like a sister to her for a while. I totally get why she didn't go to the wedding, can you imagine how she would have been targeted by the press, every word uttered distorted?

Both Meghan and Harry have lost/given up some things which were important to them, however they have gained quite a lot too and had two lovely children.

Sorry about some grammatical/syntax errors in above post. I made the mistake of not reading it through before posting.

I don’t doubt that some people have a racist angle.

But for the umpteenth time it’s her actions and what she’s said that have got people’s backs up. It’s not a few muck ups, gauchery or not “reading the room”.

But I guess using race is what Meghan fans perceive as a Top Trumps win. I am suspicious of this heartfelt concern when the same posters are eager to absolve Harry for things he’s said.

Fans conveniently forget the overwhelming support the couple received upon their marriage. The “driven out” argument just doesn’t wash. They could have been Superstars. Now they’re just Superwhingers with a sense of entitlement that defies belief.