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As if the universe was trying to warn us, May 19 is also Malcolm X’s birthday and I dread to think how fast he was spinning in his grave with all the talk of the wedding symbolising racial progress. Malcolm famously declared the 1963 March on Washington, despite its best intentions and relative success, a “farce,” a production that “Hollywood couldn’t have topped,” so I shudder to think what he would have made of this.
One revelation from the Oprah interview — that the couple were already married — only strengthened the understanding of the event as a spectacle, a made-for-TV special to delude us into believing we were seeing monumental change. But the treatment of Markle, and the bombshells from the interview, are an excellent lesson about racism in the UK and the US in the present day.
Probably the most shocking revelation from the interview was hearing that Markle was so depressed by her treatment she considered suicide whilst pregnant. Unfortunately, this will likely come as no surprise to any Black person who spends their time navigating White institutions. The constant feeling of being out of place, undermined and misunderstood take a daily toll. The term we use in academia is “microaggressions” — the paper cuts of racism that have the cumulative effect of damaging our mental health.
The couple refer to the family as “the Firm,” but given the monarchy’s history, I’d consider the institution as akin to the Mafia in some ways. A family who procured their wealth through immoral means and are always trying to go legit. An institution that expects a pledge of omerta once you join and will try to silence anyone who steps out of line.
There is perhaps no greater racket than the royals, who serve no concrete role in the life of the nation, draining millions of pounds from taxpayers each year. In the interview, Markle detailed the lengths to which she was restricted from speaking whilst subject to their code; indeed, the reason that the royals are so obsessive with their image is likely because it is the only way they can justify their existence.
Immigration, a growing Black and brown middle class and the emergence of China has helped create a misperception in the West where Whiteness is seen as under threat. Former President Donald Trump’s reign of terror was in large part ushered in due to his promise to “Make America Great Again.” Britain just left the European Union in order to “take back control” and to restore the country to its former glories. The rampant popularity of the monarchy is a classic example of the colonial nostalgia where people cling to symbolic images of Whiteness as a comfort blanket.
The importance of the monarchy to Britain’s ideas of itself was one of the points of optimism from Harry and Meghan’s marriage, that if Blackness could be included in the royal family the same would follow in the nation. Thankfully, the Markle debacle has shown this was always a delusion. The monarchy represents Whiteness because that is what society needs it to do.
The only thing the monarchy can do if the institution is serious about racial progress is to abolish itself. But this supposed crisis is just a reaffirmation of the central role of the family and will only strengthen its hold on the collective psyche. The one silver lining is how the arc of this story has gone from a fairy tale to a cautionary tale for all of those hoping that change will come from our entry into these White institutions.
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