Just wandering...

[SweetTooth2]

What is it about H&M and/or the royals, that gets people so angry and worked up?

People being pretty hostile to each other on the royal threads these days?

There seem to be quite fierce emotions in defence of H&M and also attacking them.

What's it all about do you think? Why all the hostility on these boards on either side?

(Obviously loads of people not being hostile. I fully acknowledge that! Just wondering why some posters have so much emotion for or against, and why the hostility to those with differing opinions. What is being ignited or triggered in people?)

😂

It is really very interesting when people reinvent themselves on threads - from my point of view, cheerleaders for civility prioritize politeness over addressing real harm caused by certain individuals. By removing context and nuance, they downplay and hand wave away the impact of harmful actions and behaviours on these very threads.

If you don't want to answer a question then you don't answer it. If you tell me again what questions i'm allowed to ask then I'll report you. 2

Is that poster here to engage with?

@MrsMaxDeWinter

👏👏 I'm delighted you've taken it on. I hope you will share and publish.

It shouldn't be too tasking as it is all so transparent and so much material available. Only difficulty will be condensing it all. Keep us informed 😀

@skullbabe - haven’t seen them post for a few days

Actually, racist posts have been pretty few & far between. The only one I've noticed recently was from a well-known Harry & Meghan supporter!

Mumsnet has a racism problem which has been acknowledged by MN central. You may not think it but it's very apparent to many POC on this thread and on many of these threads. It is in the minimising language many people use in these threads and the reaction that many people have here is not about H&M but how many people have actively engaged in that minimising and infantalising and othering of POC in tis very thread.

I have not told you what you can or cannot post.

Please do not invent things.

The only people who are believed on race are those who claim to have black husbands, adopted children, best friends, Indian non-English speaking colleagues, in-laws etc, and these people almost always minimise racism.

It's so ludicrous that a white woman who claims to be black-adjacent is seen as more credible on anti-black racism than actual black women!!!

You should have seen the Susan Hussey threads!! That was something else!

We had to ask Mumsnet not to delete the racist posts because when things are deleted, it's easy for posters to claim that racist posts are few and far between.

All of you doing the pro-Meghan/anti-racist work: why are you choosing Meghan Markle to make your points? She's so riven with demonstrable flaws that muddy your water (eg choosing to marry Prince Harry of the British royal family, and all her questionably self-serving acts since bursting onto the scene in the UK and being so vocal about selfless service), why not do yourselves a favour and find someone you can actually champion?

why the focus is on that

in my case, it is because the racism expressed by that poster directly impacted me and my family.

I don’t tolerate any racism, but that one just kicked me in the gut.

Meghan experienced no racist attacks in the British press or social media before she joined the Royal Family.

So you are kind of missing the point.

And there is no such thing as a worthy "victim" of racism.

I will champion who I want, thanks.

Meghan experienced no racist attacks in the British press or social media before she joined the Royal Family.

So you are kind of missing the point.

I see - so, the aim is to highlight the racism of the Royal Family, rather than support Meghan Markle? That's a difference I haven't picked up on in my time on this board. Does that point really need to be made, though? I mean, it's the British Royal Family, literally had the world's largest empire within almost living memory. Is there any doubt or question that it's soaked in racism? The corporate mercenaries with a royal seal of approval, invading, rampaging, pillaging, looting and decimating entire nations around the world, over centuries, extracting wealth and natural resources to concentrate it in the hands of the British aristocracy while simultaneously starving, taxing, de-housing local populations? And, more recently (if that's all a bit too historic) Prince Philip? Harry and his Nazi uniform? That woman and her descendant of the last Tsar (or something) husband? The jewels and the riches and the property they still live in and on and on and on and on? There's an openly available abundance of fodder for this point. I still don't see why you would hang your hat on a half-white American 30-something year old actress who married in and spent 5 seconds in the country and who has a demonstrable appetite for using the royals for whatever benefit she can extract from them.

And there is no such thing as a worthy "victim" of racism.

My question is about why pro-Meghan Markle supporters choose her to make their point. It's not about her, it's about the posters: she's such hard work if this is the point you want to make. There is so much readily accessible material out there to prove your point. Granted it takes time to read, isn't easy on the eye, probably a bit dry. Perhaps it's just easier to gossip about celebrities.

I will champion who I want, thanks.

🙄OK! I was just chatting. On, you know, a chat forum. Don't let me stop you "championing" Meghan Markle!

I see. The question I then will ask you is why, when we are talking about people here on this thread who have engaged in the behaviour we are talking about, we are speaking people who are not on this thread?

Meghan experienced no racist attacks in the British press or social media before she joined the Royal Family.

She wasn't really known in the UK before then, though, so I am not sure what that proves about, well, anything?

You don't have to be without flaws for people to defend you. We've all got flaws but the British media has been particularly vile to Meghan. Piers Morgan ( who definitely has flaws) is demented when talks about her, Danny Baker referred to her baby as a chimp, Jeremy Clarkson threatened sexual violence against her and far right groups have accused Harry of tainting Royal blood. I don't think she deserves the vitriol she gets.

You are absolutely right, of course you don't have to be without flaws for people to defend you. BUT, if the point you want to make is anti-racist, to employ similar whataboutery re Prince Andrew that always pops up here, why choose Meghan Markle to make an anti-racist point instead of, say, these girls?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/15/black-girl-racism-police-strip-search-london-school-hackney

To be so vocal about anti-racism within this niche intersection of royalty + American + young + pretty + nice clothes + half white/black + celebrity + gossip rather undermines what is a crucially serious point. The tenacity of the anti-racist posters is to be admired, but as a WOC living in the US, it's a crying shame that you're wasting it in such a superficial context as celebrity/royal gossip and Meghan bloody Markle. Change isn't going to happen by you banging your drum to the same few posters again and again and again on the MN Royal Family chat board! It's falling on deaf ears not because those posters are racist but because Meghan Markle gets right up the noses of women who have had to defend themselves from being played like Meghan Markle tried to play the RF/ the British media/ the British public. We spotted her type at 20 paces.

(Separately, the Jeremy Clarkson column was heinous. He's an odious man in any context. Piers Morgan has it in for Meghan Markle but not on the grounds of race as far as I know. I'd be grateful to be put right, in case I'm laboring under a misunderstanding! If anyone can be bothered that is. Feel free to DM me, this thread doesn't need to be cluttered with more Piers Morgan rubbish)

I (not we, because i am not the Queen) am talking about it as an example of racism. It was in response to this:

I was on two threads about the paparazzi in New York. It was genuinely nasty and unpleasant. People posting the intrusive pap photos that even the Daily Mail had taken down. Those threads were then deleted. When threads are deleted, it is easy to lie about what people wrote

This was another example of a genuinely nasty and unpleasant post which was deleted.

@sheworemellowyellow

As you say you are a WOC, I respectfully decline your invitation to compete to be the Other of the Day on Mumsnet.

I absolutely will not get into the whole some black people are worthier victims than others thing you have started. I am sure many white posters who claim to be black adjacent will be along shortly to agree that Meghan is an unworthy person to be concerned about and to agree with you that she is half white anyway, a

I leave you to it, and to discussing what her type is that you so cannily spotted at 20 paces.

Enjoy.

I'm going to ask you if you genuinely think that many of the POC posters here have not spoken about racism in the UK in context of these threads when many posters, again on this very thread, actively deny that there is racism here especially because of who says it.

I have spoken about the report that Child Q's strip search revealing that there is widespread racism againt children in this country based on the Children's Commisioner report. I have spoken about the racism in our public services - police (McPherson report and the recent case of them laughing of the two black sisters found in a park), fire (recent report on instutitutional misogyny and racism) and the NHS. I am aware of at least 2 other POC posters on this thread who have done similar. Using dogwhistles, racist and misogynistic tropes against someone who gets up right up your noses is not ok because those very same tropes and dogwhistles are used in the justification of the people in the very article you linked. And although this will not convince many people who are entrenched and cannot see nuance - there are many lurkers on these boards who it will convince. POC need to know that there are people who will speak up when it happens.

I'm not necessarily doing as a stand against racism but just seeing the vitriol against her. I feltt the same way with the horrendous press coverage against Sarah Ferguson back in the day. There was no internet in the late 80s. Its always the woman seen as a scheming minx.

I just report them and move on, no point wasting our lives!!

I'm going to ask you if you genuinely think that many of the POC posters here have not spoken about racism in the UK in context of these threads when many posters, again on this very thread, actively deny that there is racism here especially because of who says it.

I haven't read every thread, or every post on every thread I have dipped into. The back and forth of personal insults and accusations and counter-accusations...who's got time for that? As far as I'm aware, only a small handful of posters have denied that Meghan Markle has been on the receiving end of racist media coverage, and there were corrected and/or deleted promptly. It's provable fact that she has.

I see a fair amount of posts which are undeniably dogwhistle posts. They're called out, each time, and thank you to those who do so. I also see A LOT of posters deny that their negative opinions of Meghan Markle are race-based. I believe them because I agree with them. It's possible to have negative opinions of Meghan Markle which aren't based on race. I have negative opinions of my own (non-white) mother which aren't race-based! It takes time to sift through them and see each one for what it is.

I bet, like me, you rolled your eyes well into the back of your head when Harry came out with his "I've been made aware of my unconscious bias" rubbish. Did you, like me, feel he's about 400 years behind your community in this realization, that you have no time to waste waiting for him to catch up? That he's so far behind he won't ever catch up enough to even be able to insult your intelligence? When some posters insist on imputing racist undertones to negative commentary it feels exactly the same. Don't insult my intelligence. You may think you're convincing lurkers, or speaking up for POC. Perhaps you are. But not always. People who actually do have that racist undertone (or worse), you're pushing deeper into their belief system. That's polarisation, which is singularly dangerous. And people who fundamentally agree with you but just don't know: you're losing them by trying to tell them what they think. It's one thing to say "when you say x, this is what a POC hears", and another thing to say "you are racist because what you said actually means this other thing".

I don't mean this as a personal attack on you, and you're not singularly responsible for every anti-racist post on this board!! And, it cuts both ways, of course it does. Just, the discussion isn't advanced by a jackhammer approach to calling out everything that might possible be interpretable a particular way. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Like in real life.

I googled something or other to check and was faced with lists of websites dedicated to praising H&M. Even one solely for M&H “artwork” . You see all this I simply can’t understand. Yes, there is mean stuff on Reddit and often on here, but the level of fandom is quite weird - like they’re pop stars. Ages ago I ventured onto SussexRoyal and, my god, people were raising money for M&H - not for charity, but actually for M&H !!! (I wonder how H&M spent it…)

I also see A LOT of posters deny that their negative opinions of Meghan Markle are race-based. I believe them because I agree with them. It's possible to have negative opinions of Meghan Markle which aren't based on race.

I agree with you - not every negative opinion about MM is based on race. Sometimes it's misogyny. Sometimes it's xenophobia. Sometimes it's classism. And sometimes there are genuine criticisms of her which I have engaged with. But note - I know of 3 other POC on this thread. None of them have said that all negative opinions of MM are based on race.

You've written quite a fair bit - but I will ask you to think about about when you're giving the benefit of the doubt why is the instinct to give it to the people who are actually using dogwhistles as opposed to the people who are actually try to call it out. Why your instinct is to smooth things over and discount and dismiss people on the receiving end. Why your instinct is to say that when people say that things actually hurt or harm them, your instinct is to tell us to hush and that it isn't so bad. Why is your instinct is to comfort the lost as you say as opposed to accepting that they are a lost cause?

I have had some really good critical conversations about H&M in the context of colonialism, racism, interracial/intercultural relationships and anti-bias work on other forums - I have my own critical takes, however, these conversations cannot happen here when so many people do not even want to accept that racism exists in the UK.

Excellent post