The prince's spokesperson criticised 'the racial undertones of comment pieces'
This morning, Prince Harry issued an unusually forthright statement about his personal life, condemning the media’s racist harassment of his girlfriend, Meghan Markle.
In the statement, the prince acknowledges that given his position and privilege, but says the past week ‘has seen a line crossed.’
“His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public – the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”
Of course, we encourage robust interrogation of the role of the royal family in British public life, but Harry’s unusually hard-hitting statement (for a royal) is a welcome intervention in the fight against the racist, sensationalist, invasive elements of the British press.
Unfortunately, if unsurprisingly, the worst offenders completely missed the point. ‘Ooooh, Prince Harry has a girlfriend!’ was the (slightly paraphrased) first response of both Mail and Sun, followed by articles littered with exactly the sort of invasive paparazzi shots and racially-inflected descriptions that the prince’s statement invoked.
While they acknowledged his comments on racism, both papers assumed he was talking about some other racist and abusive media trolls with a national platform. Classy.
Meanwhile, the Evening Standard‘s royal correspondent, Robert Jobson, criticised Harry for speaking out at all. While ‘his decision to hit out and go public shows he will do everything he can to defend his lady’, it distracts attention from the crucially important business of Prince Charles’s ongoing visit to the Middle East, and Harry’s own visit to the Caribbean.
It’s rather touching that Jobson thinks that if the Daily Mail didn’t have a prurient story to run about a prince’s private life, they would cover a set of completely unremarkable royal tours instead.
What’s unforgivable is his implication that Meghan Markle is not entitled to complain about ‘legitimate press interest’ because ‘she is a well known actress, used to milking publicity for her own gains, who writes copiously on social media about her lifestyle and background.’
What that means in Standard-speak is that an actress who publicly discusses her African descent is not entitled to defend herself against racism.
Funny that those most committed to preserving the British royal family are also so committed to making their lives hell.
Kensington Palace has issued a statement this morning about the harassment currently being experienced by Meghan Markle and her family. pic.twitter.com/EuFZ4fmUIj
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) November 8, 2016
12 Responses to “Prince Harry slams racist media – the Daily Mail misses the point”
Carey
Aufa Hirsch writes ‘with pale skin revealing blue veins’ so he already said that! And what does exotic say? explain
Mick
I can do better than tell you myself, when the dictionary can do it:
‘..originating in or characteristic of a distant foreign country.
eg, “exotic birds”. ‘
Birds in both senses of the term, I take it! And I didn’t repeat Hirsch because I didn’t ‘contextualise’ in terms of racial supremacy. (He’s also technically wrong that Africans and Muslims were displaced from Africa. Yup, they’re still there, barring free immigration to the West!)
ted francis
What a strange fellow yon ‘Mick’ is. I suspect he’s a fiction, a confection of some short story scribe.
He’s foaming-mouthed phobic about any opinion left of Alf Garnet.
A forelock-touching, obsequious monarchist no doubt and Faragista manque.
“…..free immigration to the West”? Ah, he must be referring to 12.5 million Africans carried across the Atlantic up to the late 1800’s – hardly “free” though Mick.
Mick
Yon “Mick”? A fantasy fellow, from the club where shadowy nightmares form. (The Brexit voters.) Which only leads us to conclude that many a leftist has a guilty conscience, if creations like me pop up to shine a bit of reality.
And if it comes to your main point, I would talk to African historians about that. 1.5 million white Europeans were made slaves by African tyrants, who then switched to selling blacks to the white man. Then we gave up slavery altogether, while it still went on in Africa. A sad story, from which we got bigger and learned. Good show.
Mick
Incidentally, the point of that is to make no racial point – which would be indecent – but to nip in the bud how leftists try to say that the white man may be uniquely wicked at his lowest moments, then to make us all feel guilty about it.