I have never been that fascinated with the royal family of the United Kingdom. I’ve always paid some attention to it but not with any obsession. I remember when Charles and Diana were married. I remember the births of William and Harry. My interest lies more in history and I’ve gone down worm holes to understand the role of the monarchy in relation to parliament. I have watched about three episodes of The Crown.
When there is something special about the monarchy on TV, I will usually watch it. When Harry and Meghan were married, Stephanie Ruhl and Katie Tur of MSNBC covered the wedding in London and totally geeked out when Meghan’s carriage passed them. It was embarrassing. That, I don’t understand. But I figured I should watch Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan on Sunday night.
I didn’t even know this thing was happening until my editor at CNN told me Friday morning and that he was open to a cartoon about it. He was also open to cartoons about Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss. So I gave him a cartoon featuring all three. Then I thought my clients might want a cartoon on the interview, so I watched.
Since a few details had come out about the special, I didn’t expect any big surprises and wasn’t looking forward to it. I was actually dreading it. Two hours for this? Man, I’m dedicated to my craft. But If I can sit through Donald Trump’s inauguration speech, then I can sit through just about anything.
I expected to be bored and the entire thing to just be trivial pop culture stuff. I was wrong. It was interesting. I expected the couple to come off whiny and entitled. I thought I’d roll my eyes at them and have trouble sympathizing. Instead, I was angry.
Who starts a conversation worried about a baby’s skin tone? Who does that? You’re supposed to be excited about an upcoming birth in your family. If nothing else, you shouldn’t be racist to members of your own family.
Here’s the dirt: Someone in The Firm, as the royal family and the organization that operates it is referred as, brought this up to Prince Harry as a major concern. Apparently, they were afraid of how it would look for the royal family if it had a black member, or at least one darker than Meghan. And it’s not the point as to how dark the baby would be. The issue here is that it was a concern.
When Harry married Meghan, I thought it was a bigger deal that she was divorced and an American. I didn’t think her being of mixed race was any kind of issue at all. Sure, there are racists out there who still get upset over mixed couples in Cheerio commercials but I thought the majority of us, those who didn’t vote for Trump, were over it. Even if you’re not racist, you may have still been surprised by this…20 years ago maybe.
If nothing else, I thought nobody in the royal family would concern themselves with it. I was wrong. Who was it? Harry wouldn’t say.
But what’s clear is that his relationship with his father and older brother, two future kings, is seriously damaged. He wouldn’t go into details except to say he was disappointed in them. Meghan also talked about Kate, William’s wife, making her cry…and then it being leaked to the tabloids that it was reversed, Meghan had made Kate cry.
Before they left the United Kingdom for Canada, and then Los Angeles, the Firm was opposed to giving any royal titles to Archie, the couple’s son. The baby whose skin tone someone was worried about. After they left the Firm, security was stripped from them. There was also talk about an investigation by the Firm over accusations that Meghan was a bully inside Buckingham Palace…but no investigations toward Prince Andrew being a rapist with Jeffrey Epstein. For someone, it was worse to have a black prince than a royal rapist.
So, who in the family was concerned about the baby’s skin tone? Who was so concerned and racist that they actually brought it up? Was it someone in the family or was it someone who works for them? It would be wrong to speculate and I discourage it. That said, I think it was Prince Charles.
Harry expressed how disappointed he was in his father because he had gone through the same kind of negativity and harassment from the British tabloids as he and Meghan were experiencing. The British tabloids are NOT like the legitimate press. They are totally focused on sensationalism. Even New York tabloids don’t have anything on them. The British tabloids are directly responsible for the death of Princess Diana, Harry’s mother. You would think the family would be more supportive.
I’m not surprised racism exists in the United Kingdom. It’s not just an American thing. We’re probably just louder about it after having a president (sic) for four years who encouraged and validated racist organizations. Say what you will about Boris, but at least he hasn’t retweeted Nazis (he hasn’t, has he?). We had a president who literally told white nationalists to march to the Capitol and overturn an election. But who knew there was racism in the royal family?
A Facebook friend of mine who is a Brit and often comments on my work wrote, “America has a race problem disguised as a class problem, we have a class problem which includes racism.” He wrote that before the interview aired. He was talking more about the tabloids and British society’s racism. This was before we learned someone in the royal family is afraid of black babies.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that to escape UK racism, Harry and Meghan came here. Really? Did they not see that for 74 million Americans, racism was not a disqualifier in voting for Donald Trump? They didn’t see that racism is not a deal-breaker for a huge percentage of the population? I personally know people who have left this nation over the past four years because of racism. I know white people who left this country because of its racism.
They fled the UK where someone in the royal family was concerned about a baby with dark skin tone for a land led by a racist orange baby.
And seriously, worried about a baby having a dark skin tone? Maybe that’s the kind of thinking you get after generations of inbreeding.
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A Black baby (on the bus),, a Black girl (in the elevator), and another Black girl (in the cancer ward,, giggling at his gun) are the supreme supporting actors in “Joker” (Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro). I can see them in my mind’s eye right now.
“It’s just awful, isn’t it, Mommy?”
It’s wild, because they are comedic segments, and when he goes “werewolf,” his tag line is, “My life is nothing but a comedy.” (And “I hope my death makes more cents than my life,” written in his journal.)
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I froze myself nearly solid, on a marble bench sitting through Trump’s inaugural speech. It just sounded like a babbling alcoholic at closing time. I was tagging along with a permitted A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition demonstration on Pennsylvania Avenue. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but when the limousine came by, they shrieked unkind curses upon him. I was like, “Oh, I can do that!”
Afterward, the helmeted Coalition girl told us, “Please make your way to the exits in an orderly fashion.” All the bleachers were empty. (I think they charge for bleacher seats.)
I could also see William saying something, but that would still be Charles’ voice, I guess. Or Camilla, a/k/a “Squidgy.” . I can’t picture the queen dissing Blacks, somehow. She’s hung out with about a million of them in the Commonwealth. Of course they don’t usually show up in the palace. There are “minority M.P.’s” in Parliament, whatever that means.
It would be messed up if it is Charles. He is a climate change and conservation advocate. It would be like David Attenborough showing up with a blue flag, wearing face paint. Greta Thunberg would have to “disappear” him.
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If this is true, and I believe it definitely can be true, then it is time, once more, to end this monarchy…
I am Canadian. I have never had any use for a monarchy, Dear Lizzie is Queen of Canada along with a bunch of other queendoms, but I was not actively against it either. The Royal Family was just another thing to put up with in being Canadian. But it is not Canadian to be racist! Like the US, we have our resdident racists. Like Trump gave Americans permission to be openly racist, many Canadians took it upon themselves to show their racist colours too (Yes, racist with a u in colours!). We gave had so many openly racist events recently in Canada it sickens me to be Canadian. But the vast majority of Canadians are not racist. (I want to say, I believe they are not, but I think it is now truer to say I hope they are not!) Anyway, I am going to say this loud, and clear, I DO NOT WANT A RACIST MONARCHY RULING OVER ME! Even if the monarchy is just old-fashioned decoration with no real power, if it is racist, it is time to cancel it.
Canada is better than that. I believe… I think… I Hope!…
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For a bit o’ the humorous side of ex-monarchs . . .
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Great commentary. Catherine not Caroline tho
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Sorry about that. It has been corrected. Please refresh the page before publicly commenting on boo-boos and typos. Thanks.
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Such a sad interview.
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It’s mostly from Prince Philip, certainly. Dementia Senex has destroyed his filters- which were very thin to begin with.
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I come from a perfect family. Perfect families don’t have to be humble about anything because they are perfect. I drew a cartoon about my perfect family and sprinkled it with skeletons from the closet. Not so perfect after all is seems. Maybe being a little humble is in order.
NOPE!
I am told I don’t support the family. I am the odd man out … the black sheep.
The Royal family is the same way. All the skeletons in their closet over the generations demand some quarter of humbling. Nope. Ain’t gonna happen.
Meghan and Harry and their children are better off without the hypocrisy of Buckingham Palace.
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The New Testament is full of suggestions concerning humility, but I don’t really understand the relationship between the Bible and Christianity. It also says to love your enemies (meaning loving behavior, rather than loving emotion, I guess). I’m glad I’m not responsible for selling that package.
I don’t really know whether a religion, followed by a huge majority, is still a religion. Maybe it’s a lingua franca, so they can share a common dialect.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Very interesting angle … “They fled the UK where someone in the royal family was concerned about a baby with dark skin tone for a land led by a racist orange baby. And seriously, worried about a baby having a dark skin tone? Maybe that’s the kind of thinking you get after generations of inbreeding.”
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I’ll bet. In olden days they would at least bring over a princess from France or Germany or something.
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Say what you will about our royals Clay, most of them carry no respect. Charles says things that I approve of but the estate owned by him or his mother in the Highlands of Scotland has been outed as one of the worst managed for biodiversity so either he is a hypocrite, or he is just a useless, powerless figurehead.
But you’ve read this story wrong.
The point is not that Megan is black, or that she is American, but that she is different and she is an outsider.
This is a bigger problem for us right now. Brexit is because we identify against those who are different from us. Colour is not the big deal.
The conversation about what a baby might look like, could be seen as the most natural thing in the world, will it look like daddy, or mommy or will it look like Uncle Steve? The fact that this communication broke down so badly says more about the failed relationships of these people, and their interpersonal skills than anything about racism, but then again, I’m not looking for a story to sell papers.
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You’re misquoting or didn’t even watch the interview. It wasn’t about if the baby would look like Mommy or Daddy. It was specific about the skin tone.
You’re covering up for racism.
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OK you’ve got me there, I didn’t, and won’t.
And I dislike racism, but it’s not the beginning and end of the world.
In our case, (Britain), it is that we have just imprisoned ourselves on a sinking ship.
I accuse Charles of something worse than racism; Hypocrisy. It stinks, and we are led by this bunch of disfunctional nut nuts.
Yes, let them be as racist as they like as long as they keep their mouths shut. They are not chosen for their wisdom.
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Racism is like a vast ocean that pollutes all shores. Maybe if racism magically vanished it would be replaced by some other brutality but it isn’t magically vanishing. Kids in the schoolyard, who can’t figure out how to find friends, can count on being welcomed for racism. They could be friendless or even get beat up for defending Blacks. Maybe a kid can’t act on principle but an adult has no excuse for lazy-assed hatred. Racism uses up your short life for nothing. A dog wouldn’t waste a second on such weird idiocy. They may swallow sharp bones or their own shit but they’re not swallowing that.
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A serious royal story.
https://thewhelkwordpresscom.wordpress.com/2021/03/06/sports-update-prince-philip-transferred-to-arsenal/
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Hey Clay, thanks for watching so I don’t have to.
I do not envy anyone who lives with every word and action scrutinized. I hope they make a good go of it and raise two happy health humans and live long productive lives.
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Something that has not been mentioned, at least not anywhere that I’ve seen . . . this racism goes both ways. I was friends with a white woman who married a black man. They had decided not to have children, as they knew the child[ren] would not be accepted by either white or black society.
Nevertheless, they had two children. The conversation in HIS family was how dark would they be, and if their hair would be ‘nappy’ or ‘good’.
Blacks are judged by other blacks on the darkness or lightness of their skin; white enough to ‘pass’ is a good thing. Witness Michael Jackson’s attempts to become ‘whiter and whiter’. There’s even a term for this: ‘high yellow’ or ‘high yaller’.
As an aside: my aunt from Amsterdam, visited us in Wisconsin, married a man considered black here; they returned to his homeland – South Africa – where he was considered to be a white man. Go figure.
I just wish the Brits had kept their family issues to themselves; we have enough of our own problems here. Now, instead of seeing drumpf’s face all over the news, I have to see these two’s faces. Oh, and I saw that her father is now back in the news; never one to miss being the center of attention . . . and just how much did he get paid for his interviews, I wonder. In fact, I’d love to know how much Oprah bid (and paid) for this interview. It’s all about the money. Grifters by any other name are still grifters.
And if you like to see the entire royal family and world politicians satirized, I highly recommend ‘Spitting Image’, which has returned . . . just in time.
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Good grief. The queen’s official response is positively dismal. “1984” is often cited as a cautionary tale against surveillance and totalitarianism — but if you read the book, it’s also a farewell to joy, and gripped by a dreary, dispassionate demeanor in all things.
It would be easy enough for the royal family to display its courage. Simply discard the fabricated “House of Windsor,” and revive the “Houses of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.” After all, their German forebears are now great leaders of the free world (having previously fallen way, way off the wagon).
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