Meghan Markle had to ‘learn to be Black’ when she joined royals, British broadcaster says
On TalkTV's "Piers Morgan: Uncensored," Trevor Phillips said Meghan Markle wasn't in touch with her Black roots, which was "understandable," considering her privileged upbringing.
A British broadcaster claims the former Meghan Markle wasn’t really in touch with her Black roots when she joined the royal family, accusing the former “Suits” actress of squandering the opportunity to show the diversity of Britain after she failed to accept advice.
During an appearance on TalkTV’s “Piers Morgan: Uncensored,” Trevor Phillips said Meghan, 41, the Duchess of Sussex, had to “learn to be Black” when she joined Britain’s royal family, adding that it was “understandable,” considering her privileged upbringing, the Daily Mail reported.
“I think people mistake who Meghan Markle is,” Phillips said, noting that “she herself said that until she became this princess, she never regarded herself particularly as Black, and that’s understandable.”
Phillips said Meghan – who wed Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, in May 2018 – grew up in Los Angeles in the “most wealthy Black enclave anywhere in the United States” and attended a private Roman Catholic school.
“In a sense, race was never really a part of her background,” he added, noting that anyone from a Black background knew the subject wasn’t Meghan’s territory.
Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission whose family has roots in the West Indies, referenced an “incendiary claim” from Meghan that during her pregnancy someone expressed concern about the skin tone of Archie, the now 3-year-old son she has with her husband. He said this happens in every Black family the moment they know a baby is coming, but “for white people, it’s hair and eye color.”
“The point I really want to make about Meghan Markle is that she had to learn how to be Black on the job, as it were,” Phillips contended, “and I think she made a bit of a mess of it, she didn’t take advice, and that in some sense is why I think they squandered the opportunity to demonstrate something important about this country.”
He noted that Britain has the largest, most distinctively mixed-race population of any major country created through love rather than coercion, stating that Meghan and Harry might have served as role models but, instead, missed the mark.
Phillips questioned the veracity of TalkTV contributor Paula Rhone-Adrien’s assertion that the American duchess was obliged to confront racism in the UK by requesting the name of the person she had to confront.
Meghan previously spoke about her mixed-race identity during an episode of her “Archetypes” podcast on Spotify, where she told her guest, singer Mariah Carey: “If there’s any time in my life that it’s been more focused on my race, it’s only once I started dating my husband.”
“Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman,” she added, according to the Daily Mail. “Because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted.”
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