I do worry about some of the press coverage of Prince Harry’s fiancée Meghan Markle. My loyal reader will know that I am not exactly a card-carrying royalist but my leanings to republicanism are painfully slight. Most people do like the royals and there are bigger battles to fight. It is odd to find myself compelled to defend Ms Markle.
It goes without saying that much of the venom towards Ms Markle comes from the Mail and its readers. She attracts the ire of the newspaper in a ways Kate Middleton doesn’t. Where Ms Middleton attracts nothing but admiration and, daring I say, desperate fawning, Ms Markle is hated. Where Prince Harry and Ms Middleton get praised for hugging people, Ms Markle is criticised for doing the same thing. The Mail drags up some old pictures of Ms Markle in Africa cuddling a young child, as part of a trip she made on behalf of a charity, she is slaughtered again. Harry went to Africa not long ago and was feted (rightly, in my opinion).
The paper itself stops short of saying the magic word that many of us suspect lies behind its anger, but many of the readers do not. Ms Markle is a self-publicist, a gold-digger and worst of all – and here comes the magic word – she is black.
Perhaps I have misread the Mail’s position. After all, they have no recent history of racism and xenophobia, do they, apart from that which was directed at anyone who is foreign, that is. And perhaps the far right editorial stance of the paper is struggling to accept that, at some time in the near future, a woman of colour may be, as some have said, contaminating the blood line of the royal family. Yes, some people really have said that. Not, I hasten to add, the Mail itself but I have seen it on numerous occasions. And when it’s not said directly, it is hinted at. It is safe to assume what is happening here.
