The Daily Mail originally shared a post about Markle with the headline “(Almost) Straight Out of Compton” in 2016 — and while the comment section is filled with people defending her, there are also racist remarks, such as someone referring to her as the “Black Peppa.”
A slew of racist headlines led up to the royal wedding in 2018, ranging from a British reporter referring to Meghan’s DNA as “exotic” to TikToks and online posts pitting Meghan and Catherine, Princess of Wales against one another. Attempting to claim that one of these women is more aligned with the British royal family than the other displays subtle but clear racism.
A commenter on an ITV News post on TikTok apparently saw Meghan as a downgrade for the British monarchy, writing of her new Netflix show: “This is what the Royal family has been reduced to — a cheap, tawdry, merching fake show. What a joke!”
And other TikToks attempting to catch Meghan in “lies” really just show a group of people unable to comprehend a woman who has grown up with varying experiences. She could have eaten fast food as a child and have benefitted from more organic options in her home state of California. They’re looking for cracks in her character because seeing her as something other than what they narrowly comprehend a woman should be, particularly a Black woman, is uncomfortable for some of her critics.
Meghan seems to kick up a paradox of conflicting identities that her fans, critics and viewers of the show struggle to defend or attack. Is she a determined LA girl who loved learning how to compost in high school and made it big, or a narcissistic, nefarious plotter holding “H” (Prince Harry) hostage? The idea that a type-A rich hippie with an aversion to shoes (Meghan’s frequently barefoot throughout the show) is a Machiavellian mastermind aiming to bring down the royal family seems unlikely. You would think the centuries of colonialism would have put people off the monarchy, not someone who geeks out over the shape of egg yolks.
If anything, the worst thing you can say about Meghan’s show is that it’s a little dull — and again, the timing makes picking on the duchess a little too easy.
She might still be working out the pacing and tone of her show, but Meghan is charming, geeky and makes for easy television to watch.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
