Harry and Meghan take an Empire down a notch with one mighty vow
The news hits me like a cannonball: An American woman of color — having been wooed by a ginger, pale-skinned man in a tent pitched in a remote corner of Botswana — accepts the request of a colonial Prince for her hand in marriage. A mutual friend introduces them and he’s smitten. So far, no surprises: Meghan is fine. He says he had never seen her performances in the US television series “Suits”. Really? On their first date, they discover their shared passion for social causes. Cool.
So, in a few months time, probably in late May of 2018, the heir to a throne that fought tooth and claw to retain power over a rebellious colony almost 250 years ago will tie the knot with a citizen of that former colony — one whose forebears include enslaved Africans as well as a descendant of Britain’s King Edward III. Even the Queen is OK with it…
It’s complicated.
In a year fraught with bad news from so many corners, this news makes me smile. I might even watch the festivities, unless I’m trying to dig myself and my family out from under the rubble after Bozo starts pushing buttons. Royal weddings are not really my thing, but being witness to the betrothal of a future monarch from a line of European royalty (the House of Windsor is actually of German ancestry) that has managed to stay racially “pure” for more than a thousand years to an American gal who describes herself as “a strong, mixed-race woman” is definitely worth my time. As in many of the scenes in “Suits”, Ms. Markle is bound to impress an even larger audience with her ability to cry on cue, and this time many of us will cry right along with her. After all, it isn’t every day we see a black woman being cornered and groped by a white man and feel collectively elated about what we’re seeing. Plus she’s a few years older than he is, which only adds to the magic of this unlikely union, Jack.
#Whataboutme?
A lot of young women (and men?) will be asking Meghan, in a secret corner of their minds: “why you so fly?”. Harry is known to be the world’s most eligible bachelor. Why Meghan? When I heard him speaking during their recent interview, I welled up thinking of his mom, by far the brightest jewel in the Windsor crown. So Harry is following his mother’s lead? Is his betrothal to Meghan Markle, a mere muggle, an act of compassion? Did he pick Meghan to show the world that even a ruler of the Commonwealth can demonstrate inclusion? Will the wedding ceremonies be seen as a planned affront to the wayward leadership of Great Britain’s former colony? Will the Stumps be invited, along with Jay and Bey and Oprah and the rest of the world’s leaders who’ll roll up to the ceremony in royal carriages at St. George’s Chapel in May?
Questions upon questions. What remains is, for me, a pleasant sideshow in an all-too-real, global drama which otherwise goes out of its way to exclude people of color and women from any remotely influential positions on the world stage in favor of dick-swinging white blokes bent on cementing their legacies as billionaire warlords who repress the masses assigned to their sovereign states by an ancient colonial system that keeps the rest of us divided and conquered. A system co-invented by Harry’s ancestors is still in place worldwide even as Meghan, the future Princess, occupies her new home on the secured grounds of an impenetrable estate on a northern island that recently decided to isolate itself — by popular vote for a populist government — from the rest of the world. Let’s hope they don’t cover her in gold paint.
Gasp!
I do wish Harry and Meghan — the lion and the unicorn — all the best and look forward to admiring their strong children, following their escapades as an influential couple and remembering tender Diana and the promises she now gets to keep.
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Nikolay Peter von Somogyi Malt Hersey, whose mother’s family was granted aristocratic status by a 13th century Hungarian King, lives and writes at the edge of the Vienna Woods and thinks he remembers when winters were colder.