I will keep this short, because, in all honestly, I am exhausted with this topic. With that being said, there are a few things I feel compelled to say.

Well, write. 

When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry stepped onto the scene four years ago, it was obvious that there was an agenda at play. While Markle, who many pegged a “black princess” despite her status as a self-described “mixed race” woman, became engaged to Harry, many assumed that the union would be about her.

They could not have been more wrong. 

I have stated countless times that black woman-white male relations delineate a means for the white male to actualize his power, and this scenario is no different. The media, which showcases Harry as he who exposed the royal family’s racism, and he who chose his “black” wife over his white relatives, rises to the heights of white savior status simultaneously resurrecting his mother’s tragedy. 

In recent interviews, Harry speaks about the envy that Markle engendered as synonymous to what his mother incited, and even notes that his mother’s relationship with a non-white person preceded and (he intimates that it probably engendered) her murder. Take careful notice to observe that he uses the non-white people he mentions to place the focus on a white person, in this instance, that white person is his mother, the late Princess Diana. In the media, this person is him. This brings me to my next point. 

In the media, Meghan, the non-white person, becomes a means to underscore Harry’s humanity as the redeemed son of a corrupt empire. The implicit caption is that he who does not behold the throne is a king, and that with increased proximity to blackness, or non-whiteness, one can be redeemed. The issue here is what the contemporary moment delineates in surplus: a commitment to maintain whiteness as a global nucleus. Meaning, that the plight to liberation, or redeeming white spaces or people highlights a supposed shift from the perils of whiteness by continuing to discuss and focus on white people. 

I wanted to write this post because what Harry illustrates is a physical embodiment of the toxic word “diversity.” Diversity, as a global concept, is when people of all colors, religions, and walks of life, are indoctrinated in whiteness, and implement its racist ways in variant. So while Harry’s comments seem to appreciate diversity, he elucidates how whites use “diversity” to maintain the global infrastructure that incites the very terrorism that he appears to counter. 

Additionally, it is imperative to note the doubling that takes place. Now, everything from movies, to books, to speeches, harbors numerous messages in a single entity. However, the black woman-white man dynamic delivers two major messages simultaneously. For the black woman, this dynamic suggests black female power to change or deviate racism. For the white man, this dynamic elucidates that he can elevate his status with increased proximity to what functions as black in a racist world. For the black collective, falling in love with your social and systemic adversaries is projected as a means to mitigate racism. For the white collective, however, this dynamic conveys blackness as the downfall of an empire, as that which must be avoided or eliminated so that what’s on the surface mirrors what lies beneath.

I also find it quite telling that those who will refuse to divorce scrutiny for the academic and so-called elite, will embrace a member of the “royal” family in a media propagated redemption tour. I have also noticed a number of black women reposting Harry’s most recent interview. This behavior conveys the global effort to systemize the black mind as successful, given that these actions illustrate that some black people maintain a collective want for good white people, and black women in particular remain espoused to the dream that a white man will save them or change their lives. 

The truth is, of course, that, for the African in America, our last names recall those who pegged our abduction as “saving” us, and these “saviors” forever altered the diaspora with the intractable change they implemented.

The forces that continue to oppress the black collective find new ways to keep the focus on them. A focus that gets the masses to trust that they will undue the knots of global hierarchy that keep them together. 

Nevertheless, it is in trusting the untrustworthy to perform the impossible that we overlook the possibilities within our collective selves.

In closing, Harry and Meghan headline America’s redemption tour with a revamped Cinderella story that casts England as the evil stepmother to both Harry and the United States. 

But, Harry ain’t a hero and Meghan ain’t a princess. They are just chains that this white settler space places onto the black collective’s mind to keep us believing in anything but ourselves.