Meghan Markle, Racism, and Gratitude

Imagine that you’re out shopping one day and a homeless person asks you to buy them a meal. You look around, there’s a fast food spot on the corner, so you tell him you’ll get him something from there. 

“Not from there,” they say, pointing to a spot another block down. 

What would you think? Maybe you think, gosh he’s picky, or how ungrateful of him to want more than what I offer him? 

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About 9 years ago, I was standing on the corner of 86th and Lexington buying a homeless woman a donut. I thought those same things when she requested another and something else on top of that. I remember stomping home, embarrassed, angry that my open hand had been insulted. But now I see, I was thinking about it all wrong. 

It took about six years to learn the lesson of that exchange, and it would come when I was the person asking for more. And by “more” I mean, a little extra to be equal to my white counterparts on the job. I won’t get into the specifics, but when it happened, my requests were mistaken for ingratitude. As a Black woman, assumptions were made about what I was “used to”, and what I should be grateful for, as a result. Just like I had known the woman was homeless, and therefore wrongfully assumed she was used to nothing, which meant that she should accept any offer I had given her. 

In my example, being thought as “ungrateful” silenced me from complaining in fear of perpetuating the assumptions. The power dynamic was then skewed. I had to be perfect, impeccable, docile. I learned then, how dangerous nuanced prejudices can be. It is a type of racism that isn’t even seen or spoken, but which happens in the minds of the people involved. It is tied up in other American ideals of what a “deserving” person looks like, the power of being the person handing charity and pity down from above, and the high honor we place on being thankful. (Hell, we have a holiday devoted to it.)

This is relevant because it's happening to Meghan Markle. I watched her Oprah interview like the rest of the 17 million-something people, and scrolled through Twitter threads about the broadcast. There were people calling her out for being upset that Archie wasn’t granted a title, people wrote, “stop complaining at least you are a duchess!” A friend told me that she “seemed like the type to be pushy and get her way” another way of saying that she should just “take what she gets”. Most of the anti-Meghan comments say that her Oprah special proved she was a whining crybaby, and ungrateful for the privileges she had as a royal. In essence, undeserving. Everytime someone wrote: “How dare she ask for more?” I put the phrase, “She’s a Black royal” in front of it in my mind. That’s what they were saying between the lines.

But I am here to say to my Black readers, learn from Meghan Markle: always ask for more. Don’t let fear silence you.

To my white readers: to feel that any Black person should be grateful for what you’ve given them, is to fall prey to the horrible, historical systems that created this dynamic, and in a sense, to allow your prejudice to guide you. In short, it’s racism, and even if it’s quiet it's just as harmful.