When Meghan weds Harry, Britains relationship with race will change for ever [View all]

[Soph0571]

Almost two decades ago, during the heady first months of the new millennium, an unruly baroness named Kate Gavron made a shocking suggestion. Prince Charles, she said, should have married someone black. It would be, she imagined, a powerful symbol of the monarchy’s commitment to racial integration and multiculturalism.

Gavron’s comments were not well received at the time. As is so often the case with race and the royals, far more interesting than these remarks themselves, were the media reactions to them. Some suspected this was merely a clandestine attempt at “getting rid” of the monarchy, erasing their heritage through interracial marriages. Not so much revolution, as racial dilution.
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But we live in times defined also by identity. In recent years, the question of what it means to be British has been weaponised and politicised in new ways. Markle is, on one side of her family, directly descended from the plantation slavery of America’s Deep South - a history with which all of Britain’s powerful families, including the royals, are inextricably linked. He may not have realised it at the time, but by condemning the press reaction to his relationships with Markle, Prince Harry was aligning himself with those still dealing with the fallout of that history, and its very real legacy today.

If Prince Harry had wanted to find a way to make his role more relevant in modern Britain, he could have done a lot worse. And so while neither the reaction to his engagement to Markle, nor the reaction to the reaction, could ever have been planned, if engagements are meant to bring people together, this one is doing just that.

Really pissing off the racists! LOL