While waiting in the grocery store checkout line couple of months ago I idly picked up a tabloid with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on the cover, one with the headline speculating about their engagement: the how of it, the when of it. I don't recall which gossip rag was handling the story, but the audible snort from the black woman in line behind me was unforgettable.
"You know they're never going to let that happen, right?" she scoffed, and by "they" she meant the British Royal family. I reminded her that when the British media coverage of Markle began taking on racist overtones, Kensington Palace took the unusual step of circulating an official statement that came to her defense. "Please," my line companion crowed at a fellow sistah's naivete. "That's PR. They have to do that. But when it comes down to it, you watch — they're never going to let that boy marry one of us."
Forgive me for disagreeing with my colleague's assessment yesterday that caring about Markle's engagement to Prince Harry is optional and in the larger scheme of things, doesn't matter much. I submit the above anecdote to prove why it does, and deeply. Maybe not to mainstream culture, for which the engagement represents the next step in a typical media feeding frenzy that's been building ever since Meghan and Harry's courtship went public. That coverage sped past tiresome some time ago.
But Markle, the Los Angeles-raised "Suits" actress is ascending to a level that millions of black women never thought to be attainable. Sure, Oprah teaches women of all backgrounds that we can achieve astronomical wealth without a man's help. And for eight years Michelle Obama stood as an icon of poise and elegance as First Lady. These women worked extremely hard to attain their status, because that is what black women do.
The difference in Markle becoming true royalty, a bonafide princess, is that a British prince pursued her. A girl who grew up in Baldwin Hills, the daughter of a social worker — a former suitcase model on "Deal or No Deal," for crying out loud — is set to become a legitimate Her Royal Highness because Prince Harry chose her.
You better believe that's a big deal, even to those of us who ordinarily don't care about what's happening with the Windsors.
Question: Why do you think a number of black folks refer to the black women in their lives as "queens"? The unspoken understanding is that the majority white culture does not see us as such and never may.
For generations society has broadcast the message to black women that they are undesirable, unmarriable, lacking in femininity. You know, all the basic qualifications that would lead a prince — any prince, but especially a British royal — to seek out a meaningful relationship with a woman of color. This is drilled into African American girls from early childhood, when Disney first sinks its lacquered claws into America's daughters.
The Disney franchise exists as a fantasy version of European monarchies, and the only one of those that truly matters to Westerners is Britain's. Hence our continued fascination with the late Princess Diana and her children Harry and Prince William, the future king. William's wedding to Kate Middleton charmed the world because Kate was a commoner. Why, that's almost a Cinderella story.
From Snow White to Belle, for decades Disney princesses could have auburn, blonde or raven manes. They could even be half halibut. But until Jasmine came along in 1992 they were white. Disney crowned an Asian princess ("Mulan") and a Native American one ("Pocahontas") before finally introducing the first African American princess, Tiana, in 2009's "The Princess and the Frog."
This begins to explain the sensation of vicarious triumph some of us may be feeling at Markle's engagement.
Coincidentally, it also brings to mind an essay Debra Dickerson wrote for Salon in 2005 about her conflicted reaction to the Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson romp "Wedding Crashers." Wondering why, in a montage of the heroes bedding an assortment of women at a variety of receptions they sneaked into, no African American women were represented, she explained how that spoke to the longstanding grief she and other black women.
"Our hearts are broken because we are unloved," she wrote. "More than that: Black women are unlovable, or so the world tells us every day. Most often, it's a sucker punch." She goes on to add:
"Owen, Vince: We long for those things. It's a misery to black women why our strength, the strength that kept our people from extinction and which holds the community together yet, makes us seem manly somehow, as if no white woman has ever roughened her pink hands or survived rape for her family's sake. Or been a bitch . . . . Sisters are simply not seen as either ladylike or, to put it bluntly, fuckable. Rapeable, certainly, as the history of slavery and Jim Crow prove, just not fuckable."
Or even dateable, frankly. Consider that in 2017, the year Harry put the ring on Meghan's finger, American viewers received their first black "Bachelorette." This was a huge deal for a contrived unscripted series that simulates the search for love and romance; rarely do contestants find the real thing.
So yes, it's a big deal. At the same time, just because one of us moved on up to a deluxe 20-room apartment in Kensington Palace does not augur a meaningful social change. A few analysts have expressed hope that Harry and Meghan will set an example for Britain and aid the cause of furthering racial harmony. That's far too much to put on one sweet and astronomically fancy marriage.
Then, look at everything black women at the highest levels of society have already been forced to endure. When she was First Lady, Obama sustained every stereotypical smear regarding black women that one could imagine. She was painted as an angry black woman. One cartoonist drew a caricature of her next to Melania Trump with a visible bulge at the front of her skirt. Tennis champion Serena Williams has dealt with sports commentators derisively calling her too masculine, while a commentator at the Australian Open compared her sister Venus to a gorilla.
Becoming a royal won't save Markle from similar indignities; indeed, she can count on the escalation of such attacks once the inebriation of wedding planning ends. The world loves Harry, but he's fifth in line to the throne and soon to be sixth. That makes Markle this generation's lineage equivalent of Sarah Ferguson. If you're old enough to remember how the British press did her, don't forget: Ferguson is a white woman.
Already Britain's Daily Mail cast Markle as a survivor of a "gang-scarred" neighborhood with a November 2016 headline that read, "Harry's girl is (almost) straight outta Compton," the very thing that resulted in Kensington Palace issuing that harsh official condemnation. With the press in Britain's former favorite colony joining in on the excitement, one can only expect the pre-wedding coverage from this point forward to be most positive.
What happens after the honeymoon will the real test of Markle's mettle. As we know from news coverage, documentaries and Netflix's "The Crown," the life of a royal is no party, and that means the life of a black female royal is bound to come with extra challenges. Every move and expression of Markle's will be scrutinized and interpreted; every misstep amplified as both the wife of a Windsor "spare" heir and a biracial woman — Markle's mother is African-American, and her father's heritage is Dutch-Irish.
But the actress wouldn't have gotten to where she is now without knowing an essential truth of being a black woman, that it's up to us to claim our self-worth and crown ourselves despite ugly messages bombarding us at every turn. The fact that she'll be royalty likely matters less to her than how she feels about her Prince. What she symbolizes to women and little black girls everywhere, however, matters greatly.
Seems that boy is going to marry one of us after all. Good for her. And good for us.
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