Since Meghan Markle began dating British Royal Prince Harry, her personal life has been thrust into the spotlight and her race has been a topic of discussion. The Duchess of Sussex is biracial, her mother is Black and her father is white, and she has continued to share the racism she faced from the British media since her relationship began with her now husband. More recently, Meghan explained how she was treated differently once she was associated with Prince Harry compared to before.
The mother of two launched a podcast titled Archetypes and in the second episode, featuring Mariah Carey, she opened up about growing up biracial and praised Mariah as being one of the first people she saw herself in as a biracial woman.
"You were so formative for me. Representation matters so much," Meghan said. "But when you are a woman and you don't see a woman who looks like you somewhere in a position of power or influence, or even just on the screen — because we know how influential media is — you came onto the scene, I was like 'Oh, my gosh. Someone kind of looks like me.'"
The 41-year-old also explained that as a mixed-race woman, she was viewed as a mixed-race woman rather than a Black woman because of her skin color. "I had read this article about Halle Berry, and they were asking her how she felt being treated as a mixed-race woman in the world. And her response was her saying, 'Well, your experience through the world is how people view you,'” she said. “So she said because she was darker in color, she was being treated as a Black woman, not as a mixed woman."
She added, "And I think for us, it's very different because we're light-skinned. You're not treated as a Black woman. You're not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.”
However, that all changed after meeting Prince Harry. "I mean, if there's any time in my life that it's been more focused on my race, it's only once I started dating my husband,” she explained. “Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted."
Meghan’s mistreatment led her and Prince Harry to leave the British Royal family and denounce their titles. Since then, they have moved to Los Angeles and created several businesses such as Archewell Audio LLC and Archewell Productions LLC. They share two children, Archie and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor.
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