LONDON — It has been a month since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they would “step back” as senior members of the British royal family. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex can no longer use their “royal highness” titles and will no longer receive public funds for their royal duties. The couple — he is 35, she 38 — and their 9-month-old son, Archie, have been relaxing on the west coast of British Columbia. They were recently spotted in Miami, where they attended a private function for JPMorgan and dined with Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez. There are reports that the couple are looking for a house in Los Angeles.
The British have a lot on their minds — it was only last month that the nation formally exited the European Union, ending a tumultuous 47-year affair with the Continent — but it is clear, at least from recent conversations with Londoners, that the royal couple’s departure is still fresh in people’s consciousness. For a nation that has long grappled with its identity, and with its former status as an empire, the question of race looms large.
In 2018, when Markle, a Los Angeles-born divorced former actress whose mother is African American, married Harry, the sixth in line to the British throne, some observers heralded it as a “post-racial” moment. An African American minister, the Most Rev. Michael Curry, delivered a stirring sermon. The Kingdom Choir, a British gospel group, performed “Stand by Me,” a tune made famous by the African American singer-songwriter Ben E. King.
Inevitably, their marriage appears to have revealed complex dimensions of race, class, power and privilege, rather than resolving them.
Slavery helped build modern Britain; at its peak, the British Empire covered a fourth of the world’s land mass. Over the past 75 years, since the end of World War II, Britain has struggled to change from empire to commonwealth, and from colossus to mere country; its debates over how much it should integrate with the rest of Europe have been emblematic of that struggle.
In an opinion essay last month in The New York Times, Afua Hirsch, a black British journalist who also teaches journalism at the University of Southern California, said the reasons for Markle’s departure from the royal system were of no surprise to black Britons, noting racist headlines in The Daily Mail, a tabloid, about Markle being “(almost) straight outta Compton” and having “exotic” DNA. Even before the couple married, they complained of vicious treatment by the press; in an extraordinary 2016 statement, the royal family condemned “the racial undertones” of commentary directed at the couple.
“No matter how beautiful you are, whom you marry, what palaces you occupy, charities you support, how faithful you are, how much money you accumulate or what good deeds you perform, in this society racism will still follow you,” Hirsch wrote.
In an interview, Hirsch said that in the United States, “people acknowledge that race is a thing,” whereas in Britain, “all of our energy is expended trying to prove it exists.”
Hirsch said that some Britons maintain a sense of moral superiority because Britain was not home to the chattel slavery that existed in societies from Brazil to Cuba to the United States. And yet, it was not until 1807 that the British Empire abolished the slave trade, and British merchants and landowners operated plantations across the Caribbean well into the 19th century.
Hirsch’s narrative touched off debate. Writing in the conservative newspaper The Telegraph, columnist Sherelle Jacobs argued that Hirsch “conveniently overlooks the overwhelmingly fawning coverage that the duke and duchess enjoyed, from their engagement to their wedding day,” and the harm the couple might have done to their own reputations. “Emotional baggage from our country’s legacy of aristocratic privilege has endowed Middle England with the kind of stridently meritocratic values that are a complete anathema to judging people by their color,” Jacobs argued.
In recent interviews, a number of black Londoners said the role of race could not be denied.
“In British society, people want to say racism doesn’t exist,” said Esther Adjepong, a 35-year-old musician who lives in Brixton, a South London neighborhood with a historically large Afro-Caribbean community. She said that addressing race is like “banging your head against a brick wall,” adding: “You can be a black person in this country screaming out ‘I’m discriminated against,’ and you’ll just be told, ‘No, you’re not. What are you talking about?’”
The reality Markle has endured is familiar to Adjepong. “We recognize that as being racially motivated because it’s how we are treated and have to navigate society,” she said. “People aren’t willing to just be honest and open their eyes to see what’s right in front of them.”
Amy Francis, 73, a retiree who lives in the borough of Wandsworth in southwest London, said the couple’s departure should serve as a rebuke to British society. “May they shame the public and live together till death do they part,” she said. “Leaving was right. They need freedom. I’m glad they’re free.”
She added: People don’t “love Meghan, because she’s black.”
Larelle Benjamin, 24, a paralegal who lives in Croydon, in South London, said that too much emphasis had been placed on the duchess. “It’s good that Harry stepped out of tradition but Meghan is getting the backlash. People are blaming her for leaving, but it’s a joint decision.”
