Meghan Markle and me
Published:Sunday | May 20, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Meghan Markle and I have some things in common: We were both divorced and have interracial marriages to military men. My husband is also descended from lower German nobility, but that's another story!
But more important, our marriages angered radicals on both sides of the racial divide. Radical blacks have rejected me as a complete sell-out, and they have accused Meghan of not "empowering her blackness" by marrying into a family with a colonising past.
Radical whites also reject us as misfits. My husband's father is a very xenophobic Austrian who was not thrilled with our wedding. Meghan has also been accused of tainting the pure-white royal blood.
The most challenging thing about my own marriage has been the accusations that marrying a white person somehow blinds me to anti-black racism as if I cease to exist as a person with my own life experiences and views on the world. Apparently, my husband's white privilege has become my own.
Meghan will, no doubt, encounter some of the same nonsense. But if her choices of a powerful black preacher and sublime black entertainment for her wedding are anything to judge by, Meghan will not be a shrinking violet. She will stamp her own version of blackness on the royal family, and many racist royals will now have to bow to her because of her ranking as married to the sixth in line to the British throne.
I wish her and Harry all the best in the world. The heart wants what the heart wants. And we have no right to denigrate consenting adults for their simple act of love.
MAURICE TOMLINSON