We’re Not Asking The Right Question

It's the "What", not the "Who": My questions and thoughts on the "royal racist"

Hello Dear Readers,

I have no pithy introduction this week, so let’s get straight to it. But first, please subscribe!

MARCH 2021

Meghan: “In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time...so we have in tandem the conversation of: ‘He won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title,’ And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born...”

Oprah: “Who is having that conversation with you? What?... There is a conversation...Hold up. Stop right now.”

Meghan: “There were several conversations about it...”

Oprah: “There's a conversation with you?”

Meghan: “With Harry”.

Oprah: “About how dark your baby is going to be?”

Meghan: “Potentially, and what that would mean or look like.”

Oprah: “And you’re not going to tell me who had the conversation?”

Meghan: “I think that would be very damaging to them.”

Oprah: “OK. So, how does one have that meeting?”

Meghan: “That was relayed to me from Harry. Those were conversations that family had with him. And I think...It was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalized conversations.”

Oprah: “Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem? Are you saying that?”

Meghan: “I wasn't able to follow up with why, but that...if that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?”

In a conversation that clocked in at under a minute and a half, the pregnant Duchess of Sussex dropped a bomb: When she was pregnant, there were “several conversations” by Prince Harry’s family about their soon-to-be born son. These talks were had with Harry not her, and someone in his family was “concerned” about how dark their son would be. And this ghastly concern was explicitly tied to whether Archie would be given a title or security. Then, the Duke of Sussex entered the chat and we got a very different story:

Oprah: “What was that conversation?”

Harry: “That conversation I’m never going to share, but at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked.”

Oprah: “Can you tell us what the question was?”

Harry: “No. I don’t...I’m not comfortable with sharing that.”

Oprah: “OK.”

Harry: “But that was... that was right at the beginning, right?”

Oprah: “Like, what will the baby look like?”

Harry: “Yeah, what will the kids look like...But that was right at the beginning, when she wasnt going to get security, when members of my family were suggesting that she carries on acting, because there was not enough money to pay for her, and all this sort of stuff. Like, there was some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard.”

When you are the victim of discrimination, racism, bigotry or “unconscious bias”, you remember things to a tee. Details stay with you months, and sometimes years after the fact. When Harry entered the chat, he told a completely different story from the one his wife shared.

The only part of the story where their recollections overlapped?: Whatever was said was spoken to Harry, not Meghan as she was not there — and he recounted it to her. The similarities ended there.

• It wasn’t “multiple conversations”, it happened once in one conversation.

• It wasn’t a conversation “while Meghan was pregnant” with their unborn son, it was “right at the beginning” of their relationship before they got married.

• The hue of their child’s skin when he was born being the main decision barrier to whether he could have titles or security? Harry did not allude to or mention anything of the sort.

• That there were such diverging stories during the same sit-down was the first red flag that all this was not as cut and dry as it was being made out to be.

The day after the interview aired, Oprah had an update: Harry (not Meghan) had reached out and told her she could remove his Grandmother, Queen Elizabeth and Grandfather, Prince Phillip from the Racist Bingo board. All that did was fuel the fire.

Barely a day after the interview aired, sources close to the Sussexes told The Telegraph they were ready to move past all of this conversation:

Prince Harry hopes that the brothers can present a united front  at Kensington Palace on July 1, which would have been the Princess’s 60th birthday, in an attempt to move past their rift.

“A source close to Prince Harry insisted that whatever had been said and done, he desperately hoped to attend the event and considered it a priority.

Despite the explosive nature of the revelations made to Ms Winfrey, the Sussexes consider the interview their last word on the subject and want to move on.

They….now consider the matter closed, sources said.

One friend said: “It was something they felt they wanted and needed to do but now they have done it, they feel a line has been drawn under that chapter of their lives and they want to move on.”

That line drawn under that chapter of their lives has been going in circles ever since.

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Who, instead of What

Instead of asking “What exactly was said?” the narrative quickly morphed into “Who said something”. The “something” was up for interpretation because we purposefully received no details. But details aren’t necessary when the goal is to let people create their own narrative from the scant details provided. Thus the “Royal Race Row” and “Royal Racist” trope came to be.

For the next two years, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex refused to narrow down the bingo card. For lack of a better word, they seemed content to let the conversation fester so that everyone in Harry’s family was helpfully blackened with accusations of racism. Yes, Meghan claimed it would be “very damaging” to those involved. Apparently, she was oblivious to how damaging the subsequent speculation and feeding frenzy would be to the entire institution. She set the hares running, sparking one giant game of Racist Bingo that has been going on ever since.

Even when journalists asked them to comment on “who” [not what] said something, it was radio silence. Archetypes, Meghan’s podcast on Spotify, did not allude to or provide any context for what was said. When their Netflix docuseries aired in November 2022, the Oprah interview was discussed, but the most damaging and high value “revelation” was left on the cutting room floor, obvious in its absence. The claims from the Duchess, not Harry, regarding the skin tone of their child (born or unborn, it’s not clear) possibly having implications for the protection or titles they received? Not covered or touched in any capacity.

It wasn’t until October 2022 when we got the first inkling of a curious shift in strategy. That month, the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Foundation announced the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were the recipients of the Ripple of Hope Award. Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F Kennedy who runs the foundation behind the award, said she had picked the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for the award because of their “heroic” stance against what she called “structural racism” in the Royal Family:

When my father went to South Africa in 1966, he spoke in front of a white audience and said that the problem in this generation is to talk about racial justice. He also spoke of moral courage and said that few would have the courage to question their colleagues, family and community about the power structure they maintained. And this is what Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have done. They went to the oldest institution in the history of the United Kingdom and told them what they were doing wrong, that they could not have structural racism within the institution; that they could not maintain an misunderstanding about mental health. They knew that if they did this it would have consequences, that they would be ostracized, they would lose their family, the position they occupied within this structure and that people would blame them for it. They have done it anyway because they believed that they could not live with themselves if they did not question this authority. I think they have been heroic taking this step.

Whew. That’s a lot being put on the Sussexes shoulders, no? A few weeks passed and things got curiouser and curiouser. A second press release was circulated and all mention of the Sussexes strength and courage to tackle head on the racism in their family for the good of the world was scrubbed. Urgent and beseeching prose about them losing his family and their positions they occupied in this racist institution — gone. Now? They were getting the award award for their “work” in mental health and racial justice writ large through their Archewell Foundation:

Moral courage? Zip. Not being able to “live with themselves” if they “didn’t say something”? Zilch. And when it came time to accept the award for standing up to racism against his family their work in mental health in concert with Archewell, nothing was mentioned about his family or their “heroic” stance. So unlike others, I wasn’t surprised when a month later, Prince Harry, the recipient [stories matched] of the “one conversation” [stories didn’t match] denied the terms of the very construct he and Meghan had been defended from for nigh on three years.

2023

During the promotion of Spare, Prince Harry dropped another bomb while being interviewed by Tom Bradby on iTV: The racism accusations were invented by the British press and they were to blame for turn in conversation.

Let’s review the conversation:

Bradby: “In the Oprah interview, you accused your family members of your family of racism—”

Harry: [shakes head]

Bradby: You don’t even…”

Harry: “No I didn’t. The British Press said that.”

Bradby: “Right…I—”

Harry: “Did Meghan ever mention that they were racist?”

Bradby: “She said there were some troubling comments about Archie’s skin—”

Harry: “‘There was concern about his skin colour’”

Bradby: “Right. Wouldn’t you describe that as essentially racist?”

Harry: “I wouldn’t, not having lived within that family.”

Bradby’s face in that moment was a sight to behold. Harry is always his most engaging when he’s speaking from the heart, even if he sounds preposterous. If viewers felt that Meghan’s account [Editor’s note: The account through Harry as she was not there] amounted to an allegation of racism then Prince Harry unwittingly told millions of Americans, their most ardent defenders, that they are wrong. Not only that, but those people will all know that, whether right or wrong, their instant gut reaction was not a product of being brainwashed by the British media. But by taking them on their word. That’s important because it threatens to undermine the key, central plank of a huge part of the Sussex narrative, namely their tendency to blame the media for a lot of their problems.

The narrative that has been spun was that his family was “so racist” towards him, his wife and his child that they had no choice but to flee for their freedom and their lives. And in eight words, Harry popped that ballon: Whatever was said was uninjurous. Unremarkable. Not racist. He namedrops that it could be “unconscious bias” but even this feels more like a recitation than anything. Gender bias, Ageism, Name Bias, Conformity Bias, Affinity Bias — “Unconscious bias” is a catch-all word that provides no specifics. It could mean anything. Harry provided no specifics. It’s up to who’s hearing it to do the work of filling in the blanks with whatever they feel like “it” means; in which case, we’re back to a new game. Instead of Racist Bingo, it’s now Clue Racism: King Charles in the drawing room with a candlestick. Harry and Meghan also allowed the racism narrative to persist in Britain, the U.S. and other countries around the world for almost two years without correcting the record.

After the Oprah interview aired, Gayle King who’d been on hand to interview the Sussexes after the birth of their son, was briefed by the Sussexes on their private conversations with Harry’s family. King told her audience watching that morning that Harry’d spoken to his father and brother. Unfortunately, the “talks were not productive”. Shortly afterward, she claimed the Duchess had “plenty of receipts” to back up the allegations of racism she made during her bombshell interview. Similarly to the couple, two years later at the Ripple of Hope Award, King was asked by Jan Moir, a British columnist as to whether the Royal Family was racist. Her response? “‘No I do not. And neither do they,’ she says, meaning the Sussexes.” What a pivot! What happened to the “receipts”? And poor Oprah shut down an interview King booked to talk about the revelations two years later. Oprah wanted nothing to do with the conversation because it was radioactive and did not stand up to scrutiny. She “doesn’t get involved in family business”.

Meghan’s close friend Janina Gavankar, made an appearance on the UK’s “This Morning” to counter Buckingham Palace’s statement about “varying recollections” the morning after the statement was released. Gavankar echoed King’s assessment that “The truth will come out, there are plenty of emails and texts about that.” Two years later, she was laughing her head off backstage at a Chris Rock standup show as he reprimanded Meghan for alleging racism for an action which many African-American households and families are known to take part in.

“Like, who is this girl Meghan Markle? Seems like a nice lady — just complaining. Like, didn’t she hit the light-skinned lottery?” Rock said to launch into his diatribe, before calling the royal family the “OGs of racism.”

He mocked her claims to Winfrey, saying as Markle: “They’re so racist, they’re so racist.” Rock then said: “Some of that s*** she went through was not racism; it was just some in-law s***.

Rock continued: “Sometimes, it’s just some in-law s*** because she’s complaining, I’m like ‘What the f*** is she talking about?’”

Once again, the comedy star mocked Markle by repeating her claims: “’Oprah, they’re so racist they wanted to know how brown the baby was going to be’ – I’m like, ‘That’s not racist, because even Black people want to know how brown the baby going to be.’”

And Rock is not the only high profile African-American/British-African person having their say in this story.

British Africans, Barrister Paula Rhone-Adrien and Royal commentator Afua Hagan had a great and detailed discussion I suggest everyone watches. It’s only three minutes. Rhone-Adrien and Hagan detail how discussions about what children will look like in mixed race households is a regular thing and how “concern” can mean very different things depending on the context. There can be good concern and there can be bad concern as there are many things at play.

There can be concern on the White grandparents side because now, for the first time in their lives, they’re having to worry about the safety of their relatives because of the color of their skin. There can be concern in how to appropriately navigate that. As Rhone-Adrien says, it’s good to have those heart-to-hearts because it means they care. And then of course, there is bad concern. Someone could be “concerned” about their relative having “darker skin” because they don’t “like dark skin” or how it looks. That is a concern borne from bigotry and one-hundred percent problematic and worrisome.

The wrong question is being asked. It should be “What was said” not “Who said it”.

I’ve noticed a pattern. And this is just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. It’s those unfamiliar with the reality of mixed races couples and minority groups/families all over the world having this dialogue whom are asking “Who was the Royal who said this”? While those who are familiar with this common conversational topic asking “What was actually said”? To the people asking “Who”, discussing racism is not something that comes naturally to them. Sure, they may understand it, they know it’s not good and it would be their worst nightmare to be accused of it. But as far as understanding the intricacies of these types of conversations? They are notorious fish out of water. That’s why they’re so hyper-focused on the “Who” instead of digging a little deeper to push to understand “What” was said to confirm the affront is warranted. My family and friends fall into the second category. From the moment my partner and I started dating to when decided we were ready to be parents and fell pregnant, talks began immediately from both sides of our families about how light or dark the little ones would be. This curiosity and interest is par for the course.

Since these alleged conversations occurred, Harry and Meghan have been loathe to even associate with them.

• The lack of discussion of this topic on their Netflix docuseries and Spare.

• The repudiation from Harry that they never claimed his family was racist and blaming the Press.

• The watered down reason for them getting their Ripple of Hope award

This points to “What was said” in the conversation likely being innocent musings. Someone in their camp likely gave them the heads up that these talks were the rule rather than the exception. But they cannot correct the record now. It’s too late. They are taking a “You can’t cry over spilled milk” approach. As many have noted on social media, Prince Harry has also talked openly about the “strength of his ginger genes” and him curiosity about whether his kids would inherit his genes instead of his wife’s when they began dating:

Like most people dating someone of a different background, before they got serious, Harry had thoughts about whether his kids would inherit his red hair and pale skin versus Meghan’s darker in comparison, olive-skinned tone and dark hair. The “Who” is not nearly as important as the “What”. That’s why rather than knowing “Who” said it, I have always wanted to know “What” was exactly said and in context it was exactly said. When my grandmother watched the Oprah interview, the skin color comment was not what shocked her. It was the narrative that his skin color could potentially affect their son being safe/assigned security and be given a title of Prince. The “Who” didn’t matter because she’d gotten her “What”. At face value, the Duchess of Sussex’s accusation [which the Duke did not corroborate or repeat] is damning. And I saw my grandmother’s reasoning mirrored in others that also fell in the aforementioned second category. But at face value, the Duchess was categorically wrong.

The only context the Duchess provided was “titles were being discussed” at the same time, something Harry didn’t mention or corroborate. Dear Readers, these items are not related. Things being “discussed” and being “decided” are also very different things. The title status of Prince Harry’s children had been decided years before Harry met Meghan. Back when King Charles first created the blueprint for his slimmed-down Monarchy before he ascended to the throne. The King’s plan was to only have Prince and Princess titles for the Heir to the Throne and his children, the direct line. At one time, that was a category that Harry fell neatly under.

When each of Prince William’s children were born, Queen Elizabeth preemptively filed Letters Patent for William’s children to make them all Prince and Princess at birth. Technically, they were not entitled to it until their grandfather Charles became King. But William was the Heir and his first born child would inherit the Crown so it was always understood that if he had children while Queen Elizabeth was alive, his children would be titled as Prince and Princess. When Prince George was born in 2013, Harry and his future children were no longer in the direct line of succession.

The King had made clear that upon his ascension, Harry’s children would not get HRH Prince/Princess titles even though they were entitled to them via the 1917 Letters Patent. It did not matter if Harry had married Meghan, Chelsy Davy or Cressida Bonas, no children of his were going to get Letters filed preemptively for them by Queen Elizabeth. They were to be styled as children of a Duke: Lord and Lady, with Harry’s first born son taking a courtesy title: Earl of Dumbarton. And this is where we enter the realm of speculation:

This is just my opinion: Meghan wanted her children to be Prince/Princess too and got furious when she was told that was not in the cards. So she created a damning reason for naive US and international audiences to believe that had no basis in the Royal structure. Harry wrote a best-seller book filled with acidic observations against his family and the chip on his shoulder is a proverbial boulder. To hear him tell it, from birth he has been relegated to second-best. The indignity of smaller rooms than William, less grand apartments than William and Catherine, William and Catherine not inviting him to their place for dinner as often enough as he wanted, Catherine did smile when she shared her lipstick. If he felt slighted, he wanted us to know. If King Charles or anyone had sought to use such a vile reason to explain why their child could not be a Prince, we would be hearing all about the “What”.

I think it’s safe to say neither comment was cut and dry. If they were, the Sussexes would have absolutely used them to boost one of their many tell-all bombshells. Meghan made a decision on Oprah to amalgamate one comment/conversation with Harry [soft reminder; she heard this second hand] with a bit incorrect Titles history to help their case more. When I explained to my grandmother it was decided years ago that no matter who Prince Harry married, the daughter of an Earl or an American divorcee, his children were not going to be made HRHs/Prince/Princess, she was very confused. “Then why did she say that then?” Indeed, this question is likely why the Title/Security piece hasn’t been brought up since, mentioned on Netflix, Spare or even Endgame.

From Harry’s floundering performance in court to Meghan having to apologize for “unintentionally misleading” a judge, to the catastrophic 80 mph car chase that wasn’t, the Sussexes have a playbook they’ve stuck to since announcing they were leaving: Be light on details when it comes to accusations and the public will expect the worst.

The nuisance with this strategy is that over time, the shelf-life of indignation on their behalf has decreased at a steady clip. And this steady decay of people having trouble believing what they have to say is helped along by the Sussexes inconsistency.

The “What was said” is far more important than “Who said it”. We should be striving for clarity and context, but sadly, the Sussexes don’t seem to be interested in providing any of that. I believe “What” was said was unobjectionable because at every turn, the Sussexes have tried their hardest to ingratiate themselves in the family. From the announcement of titles to most recently the media brief to The Times about how they “wouldn’t say no” to a Christmas invitation, the Sussexes have been wanting back in from the moment they left. You don’t walk back claims of racism if racism exists. You don’t go out of your way to communicate and send videos of your kids to a grandfather who wanted to take away their right to have titles because they might “be too dark”. And you don’t make public and often pleas for reunions.

We are here because of another leaked letter to a father figure. A letter, in my opinion, leaked by Meghan or someone in her camp. Something that has been marinating in my mind is: What has Meghan done to engender such loyalty despite the shameful way she has comported herself in regards to the conflating issues such as titles with skin color?

I think the more time you spend delving into this story the more critical you are likely to become. Probably a lot of Meghan’s supporters weren’t really followers of the royal family prior to her marrying into it, and one of the first things they see is a bright young American woman of color apparently being treated shabbily by stuffy upper crust racist, classist snobs. A lot of people like me, like you Dear Readers, are different because we’ve had a longer term investment and knowledge of history. We know the history and the players well enough to have been skeptical of the Sussex’s story well before they tried to walk back that they had ever implied anyone in the family was racist. And maybe we’re more open to hearing the other side. I don’t know. To me, it seems more plausible than not that, whatever reservations they may have had about Meghan, the institution of the monarchy would have done what it could to make things work because:

#1: They didn't want another Diana situation

And #2 Meghan could have been a huge asset to a monarchy providing lip-service to “diversity”

For them, I don’t think it was about whether or not they personally liked her. I think they have all been pretty well trained to think beyond that, but I think most of them have also been pretty well trained to be wary around outsiders and questioning of what their intentions might be. Meghan was put off by this, and her supporters are put off by this when they hear stories of how “cold” Will and Kate were, but it's perfectly understandable when you consider the spotlight these people are under and how important it is that they can trust those within their circle. Meghan was someone who seemingly came out of nowhere and was engaged to Harry within a hot minute. How would you not have some concerns? And then nothing was done to allay any of the concerns. In fact, just the opposite.

Anyway, I’m in the demographic that should be naturally supportive of Meghan and Harry. I'm in their age group, socially liberal, educated, a mother and initially I did really like Meghan for Harry. She seemed like a breath of fresh air and perhaps a natural fit given that she had already chosen to live a public life and seemed inclined toward philanthropy and public service. I was happy for them. But my views started to sour as soon as the Oprah interview aired. Something just seemed “off” about that to me. And then many of the claims made to Oprah just didn’t ring true at all, but were designed to easily fool anyone with only a passing knowledge, at best, of how the monarchy works. I am still annoyed at Oprah for giving them the platform, pitching only softballs, and letting everything they said go completely unchecked. Especially the line about concerning skin color.

I do still give Meghan some slack though because she wasn’t at all prepared to be a standard bearer of any sort, and she has sort of been turned into one nontheless by people who want to make this about so much more than inter-family squabbles. Before her and Harry’s relationship broke, by her own account, she never really had to deal much with racism directed toward her. “A couple of years ago, someone called my mom the N-word” was about deep as she got.

In this video Meghan describes herself as biracial and notes that people “can’t tell” what she’s mixed with and for her lived experience, she’s been “a fly on the wall”. Slurs and “offensive jokes” were never directed her way, etc. She talks about race as something she passively observes, not something she has personally had to navigate with any depth. It happened to other people. Even the line about living in LA and not experiencing close-mindedness or racism made me smile wistfully. Ask any African-American living in LA if they don’t deal with racism or close-mindedness and they would laugh in your face.

Being a “fly on the wall”, people not knowing she’s biracial and therefore assuming she’s White, believing “we were past this [racism], that we’d left it in the past”. If I did not know who was saying these words, I’d assume these were the lived experiences of your garden variety woke White person. And I love woke White people! We can’t get to a fully inclusive society without them advocating on our behalf. But there are topics around Race, Ethnicity, and discussions around what mixed raced families talk about that they are just not privy to.

Meghan was raised primarily by her White father and admitted she wasn’t treated like a Black or even a biracial woman. At worst, she was an observer to racial undertones, not the recipient. It was never something she had to think about. Royal biographer Christopher Anderson stated that it wasn’t until much later than King Charles realized Meghan was mixed race. Even after meeting her several times, he’d assumed she was White. All of Meghan’s boyfriends (that we know of) were white. Her ex-husband was white. Her best friends friends from college are white. Her circle now is exceedingly so. Before she met Harry, she wasn’t exactly promoting Suits on the cover of African-American print media.

She herself has largely existed pretty easily in a White world. I believe she was shocked by some of the media coverage once she was linked to Harry, and on top of that she was dealing with grief from her Markle family. Pretty tough stuff. And I think the way she reacted is maybe not the way someone who had more experience with overt racism would have reacted. Her reaction was to want to fight back and bring lawsuits at every turn, which I think is fair enough as an initial instinct...But no one could ever talk either of the Sussexes down that in the long term this was not the right strategy. To this day they don’t seem to know it’s not the right strategy. And they have bungled the handling of almost everything else as well.

Also, I think growing up in a White world with a father wealthy enough to pay her way through school and help her make connections means she was a bit tone deaf when she was confronted with issues beyond herself and her own first world problems. Leading to things like giving that “no one asked me if I was okay” interview to Tom Bradby on a tour of South Africa where she was surrounded by people who had much bigger concerns than whether the Queen inquired as to how they were getting on that day. Her idea of charity, even for someone of her wealth and stature, is writing platitudes on bananas, tossing little care packages out the window of her SUV, and donating a few hundred dollars here and there in as public a way as possible. She just seems really clueless sometimes.

So this is to say that I’m not entirely unsympathetic to Meghan as a person who wound up in a situation she was entirely ill equipped to handle. But I also see the narcissism, the refusal to take responsibility, the inflexibility, the lack of technical know-how in discussing these issues and the grandiosity. It wasn’t hard at all for me to pivot from “I really like this woman for Harry” to “OMG, this was really not the right fit.”

Others can’t make that pivot because they want to root for the “idea” of Duchess Meghan: Much ado was made about the “very African-American wedding” with the gospel choir. This was Meghan “introducing us to her culture.” Not so fast. That choir and the Bishop were all spearheaded by King Charles after he’d heard the choir sing at an event he’d attended previously. And the Bishop was also invited by the King.

Or perhaps people can’t make that pivot because they are disinclined to like the monarchy or any of its members, or they just don’t have enough background to really question Harry and Meghan all of his grievances. Some will always support Harry just because he’s Diana’s son, which is partially why he evokes her memory at every turn.

This was long-winded, way of saying I understand why people defend them, but Harry and Meghan are not the pall-bearers and champions of equality people want to make them out to be. At every turn since Oprah, when that mantle has been placed on them, they’ve ripped it off and scurried the other way. Whatever was said, they can’t find it too problematic if they want their kids to be known as Prince Lili and Prince Archie. They claimed it as their “birthright”. As a mixed-raced woman of African descent, I will take Meghan at her word that she has spent the majority of life as a fly on the wall to racism, in large part due to her being able to pass as White. In my opinion, due to this privilege she’s very sensitive to any discussion around her children’s looks because it’s not something she grew up around or had to confront in any way, thus it makes her uncomfortable as it’s unfamiliar. She’s manifesting her fears that her children won’t be able to “pass” onto others who might have been curious. When babies are born, there is always fun speculation over which traits of the parents will be inherited. I think, restating my opinion, this whole drama is really more about Meghan’s own biases and fears than anyone else’s. Meghan, with her life of living as a fly on the wall has had a front row seat to how people treat others they seen as different. She likely feared the reality of that not being the same for her children.

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What now?

While most mixed-race families had sympathy for them during Oprah, many are starting to speak out about how conversations in families about skin tones are not inherently bad, but welcome. The Former Head of the Commission for Racial Equality, Sir Trevor Phillips, a British man of African descent said yesterday that discussing skin color should be considered racist, declaring:

“There is no family of colour anywhere in the world where that conversation doesn't take place”.

Sir Phillips, a former Labor Party MP, echos what others have shared: Any chat about Archie would have been out of “excitement” for a new baby and about whether he would look more like Meghan or Harry. Sir Trevor also revealed that his family had the same conversation about his youngest grandson and believes that discussing skin color in a mixed race home should be viewed no differently to discussing the color of a child’s eyes or hair. And he’s not wrong.

Harry and Meghan have benefitted from people asking “Who said something”, not “What was said” but the tide is turning. As Hannah Furness at the Telegraph noted:

Public figures have since mounted a defence of the Royal family, with Sir Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, calling it a “nonsense story”.

Another pointedly described the decision not to respond to the claims as “interesting”, given the Sussexes made repeated complaints about being left undefended against negative press stories themselves while at the palace.

And “sources” close to the Sussexes?

Sources close to the Sussexes have previously emphasised that the Duke and Duchess have not said that either the comments or those who made them were “racist”.

I’m not sure how much longer the “We never said they were racist” excuse will hold.

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I wish to segue with a story from CNN when the pregnancy of a Duchess was announced:

Whatever happens, this baby might stand out genetically among royals because his mother is the first commoner to marry into the royal family since the 17th century.

“It’s very good that they’re bringing in new genes,” Dr. Anand Saggar, a consultant in the South West Thames Regional Genetics Department at St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London, recently told CNN. “It freshens up the gene pool.”

[The Duchess’s] commoner genes might lead to a somewhat darker-skinned baby, Saggar said.

The royals, he explained, are pretty pale. [The Duchess’s skin has a considerably more olive tone, and the baby will likely be somewhere between the two – but more like the Duchess because her genes are dominant over lighter ones.

“The odds are the child will have darker skin color than the royals might be used to,” Saggar said.

The Duchess in question? The then-Duchess of Cambridge when she was pregnant with Prince George.

And that, Dear Readers explains the inanity and folly of this entire “controversy”.

“You Can Never Go Home Again”

“You can never go home again” is a saying. It’s meant to convey that you will never find returning to your hometown the same when you return after a long absence. Not only will the place and the people have changed, but you also will have changed. You can’t recreate the same experiences with the same people that you remember from decades earlier. Harry can’t go ‘home’ this Christmas.

Even if he and Meghan and kids were to pull-up at Sandringham, he would find the dynamics have shifted massively. He’s no longer a favored grandson of a beloved Monarch. He’s a warring son of a Monarch whose wife he attacked. He is no longer seen as cheeky by the Tindals and other cousins, but as a whiner who betrayed the family for money. There are no days of Christmas fun and shared laughter and hijinks waiting for Harry at Sandringham. He needn’t delude himself. About 20% of those gathered will be Queen Camilla’s family, now step-family to King Charles. Different people, different dynamic, and they all have a different view of Harry than they had at Christmas 2016/Christmas 2017.

You can’t go home Harry.

Your brother is likely never to speak to you again and the sister in law you’ve known for over 20 years also wants nothing to do with you. They won’t pick up the phone. Endgame is not the harbinger of doom for the end of the Monarchy. It’s the end of Harry’s relationship with his immediate family. It’s the end of Harry’s children’s relationship with their cousins, though to be fair, this was non-existent. Now Harry is just like Meghan, no close family aside from one or two people. A tepid comment waged as a cudgel on Oprah in exchange for his family. He has Found his Freedom.

And for Meghan? You might think that the biggest loser in this entire fiasco, the person who has suffered the largest setback since Scobie decided to plump for a second best-seller might be a certain King who has trouble using pens and making time for his firebrand younger son. You would be wrong.

Instead, spare a thought for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex today as she watches a year’s worth of “hard work” be dashed by one single, solitary “slip” of Scobie’s new tome. For months now, every single bit of reporting out of Montecito and London has said that the Duchess is busy building some sort of exciting, entrepreneurial digital thingumabob that may or may not have something to do with wellness. (Whatever it is, you just know that the phrase ‘authentic self’ is going to get slung around with glee abandon). Scobie himself writes that the reason that Meghan didn’t attend the King’s coronation was because she didn’t want to “dive back into the soap opera of the court”.

But look at where we have found ourselves: Right back in the thick of it. Except this time, people, mixed raced couples and African Britons are saying “Hold on a mo’”. Before you know it, people will soon start to ask “What” not “Who”. And those who have supported them throughout this “Racist Royal Row” ordeal will not take kindly to her admitting, as they have to The Telegraph, that they never accused his family of such a thing and that she agreed it was a harmless comment. Harry and Meghan are stuck between a rock and hard place. Share the “What” and be seen as a fool for blowing something out of proportion? Or, continue to allow people to believe the worst of your family, to the detriment of the ties to the very thing that makes them interesting: Their links to royalty?

A big gripe from Meghan was the Palace wouldn’t “correct” negative and wrong stories. Well, we’re seeing it play out now. The Palace isn’t “defending” the Princess of Wales or the King by issuing blistering statements. They’re keeping calm, carrying on and ignoring the noise. Years removed from Oprah, we have more questions than answers and people who have been in this exact same situation are speaking up. And it doesn’t look kind to the Sussexes. Scobie’s book is just one more example. We all know they’re behind this. And they can’t pretend they aren’t. Not anymore.

-Lady Sinclair