The British Royal Family: Race & Racism

[Lilyflo]

Another EXCELLENT article!
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeand...ss?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

Indeed it is. All women in public life get criticised a lot but there is an added layer of bile if the woman isn't white.

 

[Ista]

Another EXCELLENT article!
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeand...ss?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

I liked her quote about Kate and Diana: (paraphrasing) Even being dead doesn't exempt you from competition if you're a woman.

Aside from that, it sounds like she wasn't paying attention when other women in the royal family have been facing a very similar onslaught of negative press, and had their relationships with each other reduced to competition, feuds and cat fighting.

 

[Terri Terri]

You're correct. It does happen to other royal women. But there is a racial element to what's happening to Meghan as well which the other royal women didn't have to contend with obviously.

 

[loonytick]

I liked her quote about Kate and Diana: (paraphrasing) Even being dead doesn't exempt you from competition if you're a woman.

Aside from that, it sounds like she wasn't paying attention when other women in the royal family have been facing a very similar onslaught of negative press, and had their relationships with each other reduced to competition, feuds and cat fighting.

It’ really is such a familiar (and tired) narrative, the same thing Hollywood press invent when there are multiple female stars in a movie or TV show, and a perennial go-to when royal reporters can’t think of anything else.

As a I recall, if the tabloids are to be believed (yeah, right) about the current slate of BRF women:

-Anne and Camilla have never gotten over their 1970s love triangle with Andrew Parker Bowles and continue to despise each other
-Anne and Kate were at loggerheads over curtseys at private, family occasions
-except then Kate was suddenly Anne’s favorite and Sophie was the Queen’s #1
-aside from the way that everyone mistrusted Middle-class Kate and her fame-hungry family
-the Queen considered Camilla a grasping, fallen woman who nearly ruined her son and heir’s life
-except Anne was miffed that the Queen favored Camilla close at fancy events while sending Anne our to do yeoman’s work for the family
-Camilla and Sophie completely iced each other out
...etc...

It’s all so repetitive and contradictory because it’s either untrue or exaggerated. And some of it falls from memory unless I work to really drag it up because there wasn’t even enough made-up meat there to sustain the stories very long.

I’ve said before and will day again that I don’t get the feeling that the Queen’s children are all that close to each other, not like siblings who truly grew up on top of each other might have—Charles and Anne sometimes show signs of a tighter relationship, but Edward and Andrew seem to largely operate in different orbits from any of the rest... But even if I’m right, that doesn’t mean they or their spouses, or any combination thereof, are rivals at odds with each other. It just means they’re adults with their own lives and interests and households who have found that, in adulthood, their main connection is mom and dad, not their direct relationship with each other. They probably frustrate each other sometimes, maybe they get mad once in a while, but they’re just as likely to get over their disagreements quickly as they are to hold grudges or settle into cat fights.

 

[loonytick]

You're correct. It does happen to other royal women. But there is a racial element to what's happening to Meghan as well which the other royal women didn't have to contend with obviously.

I do think this is true. The catfight narrative is a regular go-to, but the nature of what is being said about Meghan definitely lines up with the way women of color are all too often accused of being “uppity” when they display behavior that, in others, would be considered “self confidence.”

And it carries an intensity that I do think goes beyond, say, the classist things that were said about Kate. Although a LOT was lobbed Kate’s way, it somehow felt a little softer, less sharply pointed. Meghan’s treatment is more akin to the volume and meanness that we saw in the early days of Charles and Camilla being openly together, when she was treated as a scheming, deceitful “home-wrecker,” never mind that Charles and Diana we’re fundamentally dysfunctional all on their own.

It all gets couched in these stories that the established members of the family are horribly offended by the new members of the family...the tabloids blather on and some royal watchers nod safely that “the royals do things JUST SO and can’t be expected to suffer these upstarts not conforming...” Never mind the specific steps the BRF clearly chooses to telegraph that these women are accepted members of the family; most recently: events where the world can see Meghan and the Queen or Meghan and Kate side by side, leaning in to each other, enjoying each other’s company, being family with each other, Charles beaming with delight as he offers Meghan his arm...

 

[Ista]

You're correct. It does happen to other royal women. But there is a racial element to what's happening to Meghan as well which the other royal women didn't have to contend with obviously.

Although this is probably not the thread for it, there is no doubt that Meghan being biracial adds a sub current to the toxic pot, but I guarantee 100% that even if she were not biracial, there would still be the exact same amount of negative and inaccurate press. She is American, an actress and a divorcee: that would keep the tabloids in a frenzy without anything else added in. The fact that she and Catherine are so similar in age and married to brothers is just the cherry on top of the cake.

 

[jacqui24]

Although this is probably not the thread for it, there is no doubt that Meghan being biracial adds a sub current to the toxic pot, but I guarantee 100% that even if she were not biracial, there would still be the exact same amount of negative and inaccurate press. She is American, an actress and a divorcee: that would keep the tabloids in a frenzy without anything else added in. The fact that she and Catherine are so similar in age and married to brothers is just the cherry on top of the cake.

While there is always some kind of cat fight narrative on female members of the BRF, this is quite one sided about Meghan being the aggressor. With all the reporting of her making poor Kate cry, the original article didn't even say whether or not Meghan was even present, let alone be the reason why, during the supposed the fitting. Just that Kate got emotional at the fitting for Charlotte. But then comes the wave of big bad meanie Meghan. That and the narrative of her being "dictatorial" when she asked if they can scent St. George's and she was told no and accepted without a big stink. Yes, so "dictatorial" and unreasonable. Never mind that it's not the first royal wedding to do so.