The British Monarchy Can Never Outrun Its Violent, Racist Past
It was wrong to hope that Meghan Markle could ‘assimilate’ into the royal family
I didn’t watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s televised 2018 wedding. I couldn’t for the life of me understand the public obsession over the event, especially for anyone old enough to remember how the press literally hounded Princess Diana to her death. I didn’t have to tune in live to see what their marriage was up against: relentless savaging by the British press and the complicity of the royal family. In hindsight, I should have predicted a ratings behemoth of an interview with Oprah Winfrey (who was a guest at the royal wedding) would have been somewhere in the mix.
Events like the royal wedding are always skillfully executed pieces of imperialist propaganda. The men in the royal family wear military dress uniforms. It is a reminder that the wealth and opulence on display were appropriated at the point of a gun. It was amassed over centuries and involved the brutal colonization of one-third of the world. The dynasty was built upon the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of Africans and their descendants. I am descended from those enslaved Africans. My parents were colonial subjects. Queen Elizabeth II is still the head of state of Jamaica, my home, and Jamaica is part of the Commonwealth of Nations, which is made up nearly entirely of Great Britain’s former colonies. The yoke of British oppression lingers globally. Colonialism never really ended — it changed clothes and lowered its voice a bit.
At her wedding, Markle requested that her veil be embroidered with the national flowers of the Commonwealth nations. In their interview with Oprah, which aired on CBS Sunday night, both she and Prince Harry confirmed they saw her racialized identity as an asset to the Crown in its dealings with its former colonies in the Commonwealth, which are largely made up of people of color. (In an interesting alignment of circumstances, a few hours prior to the airing of the Oprah interview, the Queen gave her Commonwealth Day message.) Markle has a degree in international relations and interned at the United Nations. She’s not naive. It’s not as if she’s unable to grasp the symbolism of putting those flowers on her veil and how ugly some would…
