Danny Martindale/WENN
Meghan Markle is an actress. She has two dogs named Bogart and Guy. She likes to cook. She happens to be engaged to Prince Harry. She also happens to be half white and half black.
Following the major announcement of her engagement to the world-famous Prince Harry, there has been a massive publicity explosion on the couple. All eyes have been focused on Meghan and audiences have attempted to decipher everything about her, from her acting career and her role on Suits to the names of her dogs and her friendship with Serena Williams.
Of course, the bulk of the media frenzy surrounding Meghan has focused on her racial ambiguity. In the U.S. especially, race is often the defining characteristic of a person. We thrust people into definitive racial categories within seconds of meeting them. In the America, there is white and then there is “other.” This category encompasses everyone from black people and Latinx people to even those who identify as white. The faint hint of a golden undertone or the slightest kink of a curl is enough to be categorized as an “other.”
When it comes to Meghan Markle, people are confused. They cannot immediately identify her race, and it often makes them profoundly uncomfortable. She doesn’t have the quintessential curly hair and caramel skin that many prominent biracial celebrities including Zendaya and Yara Shahidi possess. Her skin is fair and her hair is worn straight. To some, Meghan could even be considered white-passing.
Meghan has spoken out about her struggle growing up as a white-passing mixed child. In an piece for Elle UK, she recalled how her grade school teacher tried to pressure her into circling the Caucasian box on a mandatory census during an English class. When asked why, the teacher simply said, “Because that’s how you look, Meghan.”
But despite the repeated attempts by others to police her identity, Meghan is fiercely proud of her blackness and has never denied her heritage. In a poor attempt by a Twitter user to tear down Meghan’s own racial identity and claim that Meghan is not black, the actress clapped back, defending her roots.
In a recently published Vogue article on the actress’ biracial heritage, writer Elaine Musiwa affirms that Meghan is not a black woman, but instead a biracial woman, and should thus be categorized as such.
Musiwa is not alone in her mindset. While one half of black twitter is praising Meghan for being the first black member of England’s royal family, the other half is outraged at Meghan being touted as Britain’s first black “princess.” To them, Meghan’s physical appearance does not fall in line with the black experience because she could be considered white-passing and therefore, she is not black and should not be identified as such.
https://twitter.com/berriesncream_/status/935387423399231488
Umm y'all Meghan Markle is a cute girl and I'm happy for her but let's not like she doing anything for the culture when she's obviously white passing
— tee as in tea 🇯🇲 (@noranhoneytee) November 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/omgitstifff/status/935328074949853184
Honest question:
Can we be "happy" that a biracial, almost white passing woman is marrying into the Royal family while simultaneously acknowledging how unspectacular this is considering the "ideal" phenotype of "Blackness" that Meghan Markle neatly fits into?
🙃
— Octavia Butler knew… (@NotNikyatu) November 27, 2017
The problem with Musiwa’s article and the outrage on Twitter over Meghan’s identity is that they are just more attempts to police the racial identities of mixed people and thrust them into a single, defining category of race. Being black and being mixed race are not mutually exclusive, especially not to most white people living in the U.S, where the one-drop rule is still very much alive and well. If Obama, Halle Berry and Zendaya can all identify as black despite their evidently mixed race heritage then why can’t Meghan Markle? Meghan did not choose to appear “white” and if Meghan chose to wear her hair curly and catch a deep tan, there would surely be less doubt about her mixed heritage and blackness.
Lipstick Alley
As a biracial woman who identifies as both black and mixed, it saddens me to see people continuously deny Meghan’s black heritage because of a physical appearance that she had no say in. The fact of the matter is that it is nobody’s business what Meghan, or any other mixed-race person for the matter, chooses to identify as. You can identify as mixed and identify as black at the same time. You don’t have to pick one or the other, and the fact that people are even refuting and denying Meghan’s blackness is another sad reminder of how deeply embedded colorism and racism continue to be in the black community.
