I've been posting about this on FB here and there and I'm sick of it but Claire, I expected better from you. I did not watch the interview but from I have read, much of it seems not believable to me. That the royal family is strippled with racism is no surprise, and the remark about the baby's skin color is reprehensible. Notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe that Meghan did no research on Harry or the family. She didn't look up his net worth? She never saw that photo of Harry dressed in a Nazi costume? (Maybe that's when she "woke" him?) Next: no support for her depression? Harry has had counseling, and he and Will set up a foundation to promote mental health. He didn't call someone? Next: none of the Queen's great grandchildren have titles, except for William's son who is in the line of succession, and his siblings (so they won't feel inferior). and the tabloid business, boils down to the Queen not "correcting" the story about who made whom cry. Meghan is an *actor* and that was a master **act**, abetted by Oprah, to take control of the narrative and promote the Sussex brand. I don't doubt it's "hard" to be a royal, the price of all that privilege and wealth is personal isolation and a life of boring dutiful events. Some of the "lesser" royals find personal meaning in pursuits like horseback riding, architectural preservation, etc. Meghan thought she was marrying into the ultimate celebrity. Yeah, maybe they were kinda mean to her. That so many people are falling for this as a brave act against racism astounds me.
Great anatomy of an interview by Oprah. I see a kind of parallel to Oprah in Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the way in which he adeptly leads his white guests on "Finding Your Roots" to the realization that they have ancestors who owned slaves and/or have Sub-Saharan African DNA. He elucidates the implications of the past on the present and the future. He educates everyone on how we are *actually* one big family one episode at a time. I wonder what you think about the possibility that Harry and Meghan are fully aware of the degree of sacrifice and the real, serious risk involved in making structural change to an institution that has existed for over a millennium? And, while I believe Harry really loves Meghan, there was perhaps a conscious choice made by Harry of a spouse that would both make his mother proud and make a crack in the fortress wall.
First, I love your exchange below with Mae Ngai who neatly sums up a lot of the doubts I had about the interview, and I love your response because it makes your process wonderfully and informatively transparent. Secondly, unlike Mae, that address it here because it is important in my view. Whether we choose to believe that alleged racial attacks (passive or aggressive) against Ms. Markle are true in whole or in part (there is this thing called half-truth, we must remember), we also have to ask what the qualitative difference (if any) there is between Markle's experience and that of a non-celebrity, non-millionaire Black person or person of color and whether that distinction matters in a discussion of racism, institutional or otherwise. My instinct is that it does, primarily because money and power confer options that those with little to no power or money do not have. Ms. Markle had many opportunities, particularly through her intimacy with her husband, to understand his family and the institution of which he was a part and to make a decision about whether she dared to become part of it. If she did not, that's on her. If she did and it didn't work out, who is to blame? Privilege comes in many forms and colors. And as you write in your excellent essay, there is something particularly California in her description of her pretended or real innocence of any knowledge of the Royal Family before she married. I agree with you 100% about Oprah's brand, how she curates it, and what it's goal is. Well done.
I've been posting about this on FB here and there and I'm sick of it but Claire, I expected better from you. I did not watch the interview but from I have read, much of it seems not believable to me. That the royal family is strippled with racism is no surprise, and the remark about the baby's skin color is reprehensible. Notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe that Meghan did no research on Harry or the family. She didn't look up his net worth? She never saw that photo of Harry dressed in a Nazi costume? (Maybe that's when she "woke" him?) Next: no support for her depression? Harry has had counseling, and he and Will set up a foundation to promote mental health. He didn't call someone? Next: none of the Queen's great grandchildren have titles, except for William's son who is in the line of succession, and his siblings (so they won't feel inferior). and the tabloid business, boils down to the Queen not "correcting" the story about who made whom cry. Meghan is an *actor* and that was a master **act**, abetted by Oprah, to take control of the narrative and promote the Sussex brand. I don't doubt it's "hard" to be a royal, the price of all that privilege and wealth is personal isolation and a life of boring dutiful events. Some of the "lesser" royals find personal meaning in pursuits like horseback riding, architectural preservation, etc. Meghan thought she was marrying into the ultimate celebrity. Yeah, maybe they were kinda mean to her. That so many people are falling for this as a brave act against racism astounds me.
Great anatomy of an interview by Oprah. I see a kind of parallel to Oprah in Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the way in which he adeptly leads his white guests on "Finding Your Roots" to the realization that they have ancestors who owned slaves and/or have Sub-Saharan African DNA. He elucidates the implications of the past on the present and the future. He educates everyone on how we are *actually* one big family one episode at a time. I wonder what you think about the possibility that Harry and Meghan are fully aware of the degree of sacrifice and the real, serious risk involved in making structural change to an institution that has existed for over a millennium? And, while I believe Harry really loves Meghan, there was perhaps a conscious choice made by Harry of a spouse that would both make his mother proud and make a crack in the fortress wall.
First, I love your exchange below with Mae Ngai who neatly sums up a lot of the doubts I had about the interview, and I love your response because it makes your process wonderfully and informatively transparent. Secondly, unlike Mae, that address it here because it is important in my view. Whether we choose to believe that alleged racial attacks (passive or aggressive) against Ms. Markle are true in whole or in part (there is this thing called half-truth, we must remember), we also have to ask what the qualitative difference (if any) there is between Markle's experience and that of a non-celebrity, non-millionaire Black person or person of color and whether that distinction matters in a discussion of racism, institutional or otherwise. My instinct is that it does, primarily because money and power confer options that those with little to no power or money do not have. Ms. Markle had many opportunities, particularly through her intimacy with her husband, to understand his family and the institution of which he was a part and to make a decision about whether she dared to become part of it. If she did not, that's on her. If she did and it didn't work out, who is to blame? Privilege comes in many forms and colors. And as you write in your excellent essay, there is something particularly California in her description of her pretended or real innocence of any knowledge of the Royal Family before she married. I agree with you 100% about Oprah's brand, how she curates it, and what it's goal is. Well done.