Hello Meltingpot Readers,
Maybe the chaos and despair happening all over the world has got your mind anywhere but on the goings on of the British royal family. Well, I’m here to remind you that this Saturday, on May 19th, Prince Harry is marrying the biracial, American actress, Meghan Markle making the royal family a whole lot more colorful. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say “a lot more,” because she’s only one person, but still, the significance of Markle joining one of the most culturally relevant and globally influential royal families is not to be underestimated.
In the United States we like to say that one drop of Black blood makes a person Black, so with all the drops of Black blood Markle carries within her, what does this mean for the racial status of the royal family? Are they a mixed royal family now? Would they still be classified as a white royal family? Did anybody ever classify them that way anyway? I don’t know how the British catalogue their royal blood lines and/or how the British citizens view their royals in terms of “racial purity.” I just know that Prince Harry has now forced everyone to revisit the issue. Yay! (Not since Queens Charlotte, she of the rumored mixed blood, has this conversation been warranted.)
I also know that we can stop looking at Disney to create a mixed-race and/or brown princess to sit along side Snow White and them, because now we have Meghan, a real princess of color. Our little brown girls don’t need a fairytale cartoon character to see a princess that looks like them, they can just tune in to the wedding on Saturday and watch a princess be crowned in real life. And after that, they just have to read People magazine to follow along to see what Princess Meghan is up to. I like the sound of that, Princess Meghan.
And it’s not just little brown girls who might find joy in seeing a brown girl from America becoming a princess. There are those of us grown folks who are also suckers for happily ever afters featuring castles and crowns and colorful characters. Of course, I know this isn’t a real fairytale and shit will go down because life is like that, even if you do get to wear a tiara to dinner, but I’m super happy to buy into the Lifetime movie version of this “royal romance” and allow it to give me a tiny bit of glow in my life. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are making history on multiple fronts (she’s biracial, American, divorced and older than the Prince) but more importantly, they are bucking an archaic system of tradition and providing an alternative, more inclusive image of what love looks like and what a princess looks like. Bravo to them both.
And speaking of that Lifetime movie, as soon as I can figure out how to watch it without cable I’m totally tuning in because the actress portraying Markle, Parisa Fitz-Henley is a friend of mine from back in the day. I am so proud of her and have heard she did a wonderful job in the role. Check out the trailer below and feel free to loose yourself in the fairytale.
So, Meltingpot readers, will you be watching the royal wedding or just tuning into the movie? I’m trying to decide myself. Really, I just want to see how many Black people are going to be in attendance in addition to Markle’s mom. I also wonder if they’re going to do the electric slide. Hmmm…
Peace!
