Opinion / Meghan Markle offered Queen Elizabeth a chance to lead on diversity – but the British royal family’s response to her and Prince Harry’s Oprah Winfrey interview shows how far the crown needs to go

Mar 11 , 2021

Meghan Markle offered Queen Elizabeth a chance to lead on diversity – but the royal family’s short, staid statement prompted calls for the palace to be more progressive. Photo: AP

The Crown reminded us how adept the UK royals are at dodging scandals, yet the Oprah interview fallout is a controversy the United Kingdom cannot ignore

Meghan Markle’s wedding to Prince Harry offered a chance for Queen Elizabeth to lead on diversity and mental health – but Buckingham Palace is falling short

Viewers of dramas like The Crown and The Queen are all too familiar with the British royal family’s gift for surviving scandals of all shapes and sizes with a quizzical blend of tradition and adaptability.

The trappings of crown and sceptre, coupled with an “everyman” willingness to, for example, pay taxes (in 1992) and embrace Twitter (in 2014), are among the reasons Queen Elizabeth remains today, at 94, perhaps one of the most admired women in the world.

But a Windsor’s willingness to evolve appeals only if it’s honest. Oprah Winfrey’s bombshell-dropping interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, on first reference suggests that something less than honest, even sinister, is lurking within an intolerant royal family.

A black and mixed-race generation

Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle leave after their wedding ceremony, at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, in May 2018. Photo: AP

The fairy tale wedding three years ago of Harry – younger brother to Prince William, heir to the throne – and Meghan, an American biracial actress, was must-see TV. In the United States alone, 29.2 million people watched the pageantry – at 7am on a Saturday, no less, Eastern Time.

And it was particularly enchanting for a generation of black and mixed-race Britons who suddenly found a more accessible monarchy.

But for the House of Windsor, not so much.

Many say it was painful to watch Meghan Markle’s experiences with racism invalidated by the royal family, members of the media and the public, offering up yet another example of a black woman’s experience being disregarded and denied. Photo: AP

Harry and Meghan told Winfrey that the royal family worried about the 2019 birth of the couple’s first child, Archie. Meghan said there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be”. Family members said they did not want the mixed-race child to be a prince or princess. Harry and Meghan declined to say who in the family made these remarks.

Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, visits London’s Natural History Museum in February 2019. Photo: Reuters