Though Meghan Markle and Prince Harry dropped plenty of shocking tidbits in their instant landmark interview with Oprah that aired Sunday, only one topic merited mention in the brief response statement from Buckingham Palace on Tuesday. “The issues raised, particularly of race, are concerning,” it read, with a typical sense of royal understatement. “While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
Though Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and Prince William had reportedly spent much of Monday discussing their response, it was practically the royal equivalent of Notes app apology. And the note, as well as much of the response to Meghan’s claims in the British press, failed to get at the actual fear of miscegenation behind the comment a royal family member allegedly made about the potential color of Archie’s skin. The monarchy’s defenders have pointed to specific examples of the royals interacting with Black people in the days after the interview, but their ability to do their job in public, or even their personal feelings, aren’t the point. The skin color comments reveal a much more complex fear of interracial marriage operating behind the scenes, one that made the family’s first biracial duchess feel unwelcome—and one that nobody seems prepared to deal with even now.
As Harry and Meghan explained to Oprah, the palace’s failure to deal with Meghan’s racist press coverage was one of the factors that led to their exit—but it wasn’t only coming from the press. Meghan’s allegation about skin color resonated around the world, and in the interview she said the comment was made around the same time palace officials were asking that Archie not be given a title. “In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time… 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,” she said. “It was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalized conversations.”
It was subtle, but Meghan added that “family” even wanted to change the convention so that Archie would not become a prince when Charles is king, even though that is technically the tradition. In the family’s pursuit of a “slimmed-down monarchy,” it seemingly made a concerted effort to exclude its first mixed-race member—even as his race made him a higher risk target, according to a source close to Meghan and Harry who spoke to the Telegraph. “Security was paramount to them,” the source said. “On that basis, as a couple, they wanted him to be a prince and that was made clear to the royal family.”
Nearly as soon as the Oprah interview aired, much of the British press treated it as if Harry and Meghan had accused the entire royal family of open racism—the Times editorial board wrote that “the implication that the monarchy is racist could hardly be more damaging”—which, of course, is an easy thing to disprove. On Tuesday, Charles went to a temporary vaccine clinic in a majority-Black London church, where he praised Black churches across the country for supporting communities during the pandemic. An anonymous friend spoke out about his belief that “diversity is the strength of society.” It happened in America, too; on Wednesday morning TMZ quoted praise for Charles from the leader of the choir that performed at Meghan and Harry’s wedding.
By the time William was confronted about race during a Thursday engagement, it was possible to even feel bad for him. How are you supposed to answer a question like, “Is the royal family a racist family?” If you ignore it, you seem guilty, but if you answer it plainly, you forever become the person who has said, “We are very much not a racist family.”
The discourse is so dispiriting because it doesn’t have to be that way—the royal family’s inner feelings are not really the issue here. It’s worth bearing in mind that “prince” is both a title and a job, and it’s even listed under the section for parents’ “profession” on some of the children’s birth certificates. Clearly, Charles and William can show fairness on the job, and there is not a question about that. Instead, Meghan and Harry are talking about what led them to feel pushed out and unprotected in their private lives—and how persistently racist press coverage has a societal impact that goes beyond simple bad manners.
It took me a little while to realize that what Harry called an “awkward” conversation about their children’s skin was really a fear of miscegenation. It’s a word invented during the American Civil War that aptly summed up a common aim in pursuing racial segregation: avoiding mixed-race unions and mixed-race children. But, of course, it’s not only an American idea; ironclad beliefs about the white race’s superiority formed the backbone of the British empire. Even as racial attitudes have changed over the years, negative attitudes about interracial marriage persisted long after legal prohibitions were removed.