More to the point: the principle of receiving a leadership position by virtue of birth into a specific family is true of both the British royal family and of some First Nations. What I am asking: Is this principle problematic or not? I struggle with it.
I would find it offensive if the position was one of actual power over me. But it isn't. It looks like burden rather than a prize.
Can the English conquest of Ireland many centuries ago be justified by the fact that the Irish were more or less the same 'race'
Except that there was the long-standing perception of the Irish as an inherently inferior people. Race and whiteness are very malleable concepts. You're right that it's not just about skin color, but the scientific racism that originated in the Enlightenment was very different from the thinking that came before. The Romans didn't believe they were inherently superior to the people they conquered because of something in their bloodlines, they believed (to the extent they thought about it at all) that they were inherently superior because the kind of society they lived in had made them so.
Thankyou so much, Croesos, for that link to the story of many Southern Italian immigrants to the USA.
Of course it is still not unknown for Northern Italians to see southerners as lass than human.
I recall someone commenting that the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was born an Italian-American but by the time he died he was white.
It probably helped that he spent his entire time as Associate Justice allying himself with white supremacists to shit on black and brown people.
There's that, but it was more a part of the late 20th century American project of maintaining a white majority by reclassifying as "white" people who had never been considered so before. (Italians, eastern Europeans, Spaniards but not other Hispanics, etc.) Racial unity achieved by people of all European backgrounds being considered "white".
Racism serves the interests of rich and powerful people, so Black people aren't going to be reclassified as "white" overnight. Rich and powerful people need poor white people to see themselves as different and better than other poor people.
Have you seen the CharlieHebdo cartoon of Queen Eliz kneeling on Meghan's back? I'm hearing outrage internationally. Locally it is being received with some positivity as a critical representation of racism which forms all of what the monarchy represents. Here, colonialism and settler culture, and the racism it represents. If art is meant to provoke, I'd say this is art.
At the time of the Jamestown settlement at the beginning of the seventeenth century, skin color was not considered that important. When Pocahontas, who was the daughter of King Powhatan, was thinking of marrying one of the Jamestown settlers there was discussion of whether it was proper for the daughter of a king to marry a commoner.
So could 'blacks' equally be considered as 'whites' ?
Would that not solve the 'racial' problem at a stroke ?
Only when we find some aliens or orcs for white supremacists to hate.
Some blacks have been considered white. African American history and family histories are full of accounts of those of obviously mixed origins passing for white. There are dozens of films and novels on the "tragedy" of their fate. During the Toronto Showboat controversy (was it 1991?) I recall preparing a briefing note-- my comment that all of the excitement ignored the basic plot element of the heroine passing for white was excised by some bright spark as being irrelevant.
Brazil and other countries are rather more fluid on what constitutes black or white, but in North America and parts of the Caribbean, slave codes, and Jim Crow laws following, focussed on the one-drop rule to ensure that nobody could escape the impact of these measures and an often-educated minority of the minority could be kept perpetually off-balance and politically impotent. This has coloured (sorry) identity and community issues ever since. Given the likelihood of Berber blood circulating in the Windsor bloodstream, purists could easily mark the Queen with the touch of the tarbrush, but we don't hear too much of that. Prince Harry could be an interesting guest on Henry Louis Gates Jr's Finding Your Roots.
As an aside, the British encouraged the immigration of Portuguese to Trinidad from the 1890s, writing (Command papers passim, where I gleaned this years ago) that while they were not white, they were European, and would mobilize the economic potential of the colony.
Pace @NOprophet_NØprofit such cartoons are empty titillation. These cartoons and much of the discussion seems aimed at loading the deeds of western society on to one family. Nobody will write a cheque for a reconciliation and reparations fund, and not an inch of ground will be returned to indigenous inhabitants.
Pace @NOprophet_NØprofit such cartoons are empty titillation. These cartoons and much of the discussion seems aimed at loading the deeds of western society on to one family. Nobody will write a cheque for a reconciliation and reparations fund, and not an inch of ground will be returned to indigenous inhabitants.
No of course it's not one family. It's the nation they symbolize. Nor is it about territory to be returned. I'd read Erna Paris' book Long Shadows some years ago. It's hard to see out from under a big one. Reconciliation is understanding. Perhaps such a picture reinforces defensiveness.
Pace @NOprophet_NØprofit such cartoons are empty titillation. These cartoons and much of the discussion seems aimed at loading the deeds of western society on to one family. Nobody will write a cheque for a reconciliation and reparations fund, and not an inch of ground will be returned to indigenous inhabitants.
No of course it's not one family. It's the nation they symbolize. Nor is it about territory to be returned. I'd read Erna Paris' book Long Shadows some years ago. It's hard to see out from under a big one. Reconciliation is understanding. Perhaps such a picture reinforces defensiveness.
I understand your point better. My view is that we (Canadians, generally, as I know them best) are in many ways hopefully looking around for ways to offload responsibilities, and for me such cartoons are: "Whew! now the bad guys are dealt with, I can have another beer."
"obvious that Meghan was too independent and self-sufficient for life in the palace. "
Too independent, I think is fair comment. She wanted to do things her way, rather than fitting in. Too self-sufficient? I don't see any sign of the Duchess being self-sufficient. She apparently reported depression and suicidal thoughts, caused by the treatment she perceived she was getting. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency. She seems to be concerned about what people think of her. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency.
As for racism justifying taking over a country and forcing your religion on them - cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, their religion). "Taking over a country and forcing your religion on them" describes a number of middle ages European wars - it's not a fundamentally racist thing. It's what countries that have gone to war with other countries have done since time immemorial.
Unless you want to regard any expression of "our way is better than your way" as racist, in which case you seem to rather devalue the word.
Too independent, I think is fair comment. She wanted to do things her way, rather than fitting in. Too self-sufficient? I don't see any sign of the Duchess being self-sufficient. She apparently reported depression and suicidal thoughts, caused by the treatment she perceived she was getting. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency. She seems to be concerned about what people think of her. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency.
This is utter bollocks. Being distressed when people treat you like shit is not a lack of self-sufficiency. Not is it somehow weird or abnormal to be upset about people lying about you in newspapers. Come to that caring what other people think of you is normal, that’s how social interaction works. That is a different kettle of fish to expecting everyone to like you.
"obvious that Meghan was too independent and self-sufficient for life in the palace. "
As for racism justifying taking over a country and forcing your religion on them - cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, their religion). "Taking over a country and forcing your religion on them" describes a number of middle ages European wars - it's not a fundamentally racist thing. It's what countries that have gone to war with other countries have done since time immemorial.
Unless you want to regard any expression of "our way is better than your way" as racist, in which case you seem to rather devalue the word.
"Middle ages European wars" - except that some of these were ongoing in the 20th century. Then noting the word "war". It's not war if you have guns and the people in the country you sail off to have none. It has been hunting (sub)humans multiple times, and others, figuring out that with threat of force behind you, it's possible to make any sort of "deal" you want, in your favour. Forbid the language, forbid the religion, forbid the culture, take the children and adopt them to "civilized parents", disperse the people among the more numerous and make them feel that the only way is your's. Noting that some of these policies endured into the 1980s where I live. This is the long shadows.
Noting that some of these policies endured into the 1980s where I live. This is the long shadows.
I'm not arguing that the treatment of First Nations people in Canada wasn't racist - I'm disputing the claim you quoted that only racism could drive a country to invade another and supplant its religion and culture. I'd argue that supplanting people's religion and culture was rather the norm for how countries invaded other countries since forever. I don't think that, for example, Norman attitudes towards the Saxons would be well described by what we call racism.
It's not war if you have guns and the people in the country you sail off to have none. It has been hunting (sub)humans multiple times, and others, figuring out that with threat of force behind you, it's possible to make any sort of "deal" you want, in your favour.
I don't think I can think of any examples of war offhand where the side with the dominant force has decided to limit itself to make it "fair". The Roman Empire spread because the Romans had trained, disciplined soldiers, and the enemy didn't.
When discussing Indigenous governance in Canada, it's important to remember that in many cases, the Chief and Council are roles imposed by the colonial state on First Nations, and only on reserves. Their power comes from the colonizers, not from their people. That is why the traditional leadership -hereditary or otherwise - is so important. They represent the government systems Indigenous people chose for themselves over thousands of years before colonization.
Noting that some of these policies endured into the 1980s where I live. This is the long shadows.
I'm not arguing that the treatment of First Nations people in Canada wasn't racist - I'm disputing the claim you quoted that only racism could drive a country to invade another and supplant its religion and culture. I'd argue that supplanting people's religion and culture was rather the norm for how countries invaded other countries since forever. I don't think that, for example, Norman attitudes towards the Saxons would be well described by what we call racism.
I don't think that racism is the primary driver of taking over another country and destroying their religion and culture, but it justifies it. It also allows the dispossession of the inhabitants. The Normans became indistinguishable from the Saxons as they melded their cultures together, and language.
It's not war if you have guns and the people in the country you sail off to have none. It has been hunting (sub)humans multiple times, and others, figuring out that with threat of force behind you, it's possible to make any sort of "deal" you want, in your favour.
I don't think I can think of any examples of war offhand where the side with the dominant force has decided to limit itself to make it "fair". The Roman Empire spread because the Romans had trained, disciplined soldiers, and the enemy didn't.
Nor me. The point may be that the morality of Rome expressly promoted that, and the morality of 19th and 20th century empire building pretends that it isn't like Rome. Save Nazi Germany perhaps.
Fixed quoting code, I hope. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Too independent, I think is fair comment. She wanted to do things her way, rather than fitting in. Too self-sufficient? I don't see any sign of the Duchess being self-sufficient. She apparently reported depression and suicidal thoughts, caused by the treatment she perceived she was getting. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency. She seems to be concerned about what people think of her. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency.
This is utter bollocks. Being distressed when people treat you like shit is not a lack of self-sufficiency. Not is it somehow weird or abnormal to be upset about people lying about you in newspapers. Come to that caring what other people think of you is normal, that’s how social interaction works. That is a different kettle of fish to expecting everyone to like you.
Thank you for expressing this so well @Doublethink.
I don't think that racism is the primary driver of taking over another country and destroying their religion and culture, but it justifies it. It also allows the dispossession of the inhabitants. The Normans became indistinguishable from the Saxons as they melded their cultures together, and language.
People will search for whatever figleaf of coverage will make the thing that they want to do compatible with their expressed morality. If "slaughter their men and rape their women" is normal behaviour in your society, you don't need an excuse. If ruthlessly exploiting your neighbour is a bit frowned upon in your society, then you need some pretense that you can hide behind. Various ideas of "scientific racism" provide a convenient figleaf.
This is utter bollocks. Being distressed when people treat you like shit is not a lack of self-sufficiency. Not is it somehow weird or abnormal to be upset about people lying about you in newspapers. Come to that caring what other people think of you is normal, that’s how social interaction works. That is a different kettle of fish to expecting everyone to like you.
I did not say it was either weird or abnormal - I said it wasn't self-sufficient. To my mind, someone who is self-sufficient does not require validation or emotional support from other people in order to function. If you need the support of other people, it seems to me you are by construction not self-sufficient.
I have no idea where "expecting everyone to like you" came from. I don't think very many people are truly self-sufficient; I think the Duchess is probably a bit under average on the self-sufficiency scale.
What you are describing as self-sufficiency would be a fairly fundamental psychological dysfunction. What you are describing is not what most people mean by self-sufficiency.
And again, the fact that the duchess reacted the way she did is not evidence of a less than normal amount of self-sufficiency.
Congratulations on being a rock and an island @Leorning Cniht .
While I score well on the Not Giving a Damn scale I am aware that I am not occupying a high-profile public position in which I am continually minutely scrutinised - and criticised. All this in a milieu of complicated rules and expectations (frequently implied as things one ought to know without being told).
It’s the interview that confuses me. You’d think that publicity, along with the whole world talking about it and giving their own ‘take’ on her behaviour would be the last thing a person would want while recovering from time spent with a toxic, dysfunctional family.
I doubt if we’d be talking about them now if they had gone on to live a quiet life in the US, supporting charities etc etc.
This is utter bollocks. Being distressed when people treat you like shit is not a lack of self-sufficiency. Not is it somehow weird or abnormal to be upset about people lying about you in newspapers. Come to that caring what other people think of you is normal, that’s how social interaction works. That is a different kettle of fish to expecting everyone to like you.
I did not say it was either weird or abnormal - I said it wasn't self-sufficient. To my mind, someone who is self-sufficient does not require validation or emotional support from other people in order to function. If you need the support of other people, it seems to me you are by construction not self-sufficient.
There is a huge difference between not needing the approval of other people and being able to cope with active, vocal and constant disapproval, especially once the press get involved.
But Doublethink is right -- what you are describing above sounds more like some form of dysfunction.
It’s the interview that confuses me. You’d think that publicity, along with the whole world talking about it and giving their own ‘take’ on her behaviour would be the last thing a person would want while recovering from time spent with a toxic, dysfunctional family.
I doubt if we’d be talking about them now if they had gone on to live a quiet life in the US, supporting charities etc etc.
Some people want to put their side of it out there.
It’s the interview that confuses me. You’d think that publicity, along with the whole world talking about it and giving their own ‘take’ on her behaviour would be the last thing a person would want while recovering from time spent with a toxic, dysfunctional family.
I doubt if we’d be talking about them now if they had gone on to live a quiet life in the US, supporting charities etc etc.
Some people want to put their side of it out there.
What quetzalcoatl just said: It was a chance for M and H to get a word in edgewise. Not in order to get more publicity--they were putting their side out there, so they'd have a chance at a better, healthier life. They spoke their truth in the interview in a calm, quiet, dignified way, and made a point of protecting the people taed about.
As to the comment that we'd probably wouldn't be talking about them now, if they'd just gone on to live quietly and do charitable works: Does anyone really think they would've been let alone? And they *have* been doing charitable works. They have their own Archewell Foundation, and participate in other things. IIRC, they've worked out ways to keep involved with their former patronage causes. And they helped out a women's (?) shelter in Texas with the storm.
Meghan said she likes to rescue animals. They have a flock of rescued chickens, in a cute little coop styled like a playhouse or tiny cottage. (Shown very briefly.) They're there for Archie. Looks like the coop is in a wooded area.
Thinking that they'd have peace and quiet by now, if they'd just kept silent seems...naive...to me. There are tabloids in the US, too, plus journalists who report on royals. None of those will just turn off the switch and go on to something else. Same with the British tabloids, which have been known to make things up about Meghan. The US tabloids certainly do make up some stuff. I'm not sure if they've made anything up about Meghan and Harry,
No matter what H and M do, they won't simply be left alone. They started working so they could afford security to keep Archie and their forthcoming daughter safe. I'm guessing there's other security fairly nearby, because Oprah lives down the same road a ways.
They're (re)gaining some control over their lives. There was a period last year (IIRC) when The Firm wouldn't even let Meghan outside the building where she lived--she was too much a focus of the tabloids, even though she hadn't sought that nor done anything wrong. She couldn't go meet with her friends for support. She couldn't even go out with her *mother*!
Meghan and Harry have a better life now, and I hope it continues to greatly improve, and that they and their kids will be safe.
:votive:
It’s the interview that confuses me. You’d think that publicity, along with the whole world talking about it and giving their own ‘take’ on her behaviour would be the last thing a person would want while recovering from time spent with a toxic, dysfunctional family.
I doubt if we’d be talking about them now if they had gone on to live a quiet life in the US, supporting charities etc etc.
Some people want to put their side of it out there.
Clearly.
My question is ‘to what purpose?’
Well, why are we all putting our side of it out here? For some people, it's instinctive. Not introverts, I guess.
But Doublethink is right -- what you are describing above sounds more like some form of dysfunction.
Fair enough. You tell me how you define a "self-sufficient" person then. @NOprophet_NØprofit's quote, which I was arguing with, claimed that the Duchess was self-sufficient. From context, the implication was that this self-sufficiency was something that other people who married in to the royal family didn't have.
I think that's nonsense. But by all means, if you have a better definition of "self-sufficiency", bring it forth.
I am not surprised Meghan and Harry bailed* out of the Royal Family, I'm more surprised that Meghan remained ignorant enough of the dysfunctionality to join it in the first place.
But if your expressed desire is to live a quiet life, surely an interview with a big name interviewer such as Oprah is counterproductive. All that will do is create a publicity storm.
Cynically, if however, you are trying to convince the British Royal Family to pay compensation for racist behaviour, then maybe drumming up publicity could be a tactic. Albeit, not terribly successful in the UK where according to a recent YouGov poll (link) their popularity has fallen to a new low.
Harry complaining they were cut off from money from the family when he is worth around £36 million did not go down well in a country reeling from the effects of Covid19 and Brexit, with high levels of unemployment and child poverty.
* I thought bailed out derived from bailing out water in boats, not baling hay?
Or you could say, and some people are, that by not identifying the person who made the comments you are putting the whole family under suspicion. Prince William found it necessary to say publicly that the royal family is not a racist family.
We recorded the interview and watched it in several sittings; by the time we'd finished watching it felt like old news because it's been picked over so thoroughly in various media streams. I also wanted to get the perspective of a few members of the younger generation whom I saw at the weekend. I, for example - a *cough* member of the older generation *cough* here in the UK - grew up knowing that the female members of the family curtsey to the queen even in private as a mark of respect and recognition of her position. I didn't know whether that had reached the younger generation, but certainly my early-thirties-aged daughter knew.
I agree they were calm and dignified during the interview and some things needed saying. As others have observed, I can't think that giving an interview to a big name such as Oprah was the best way of saying it or was the way to a life away from the attention of the media which they say they want and which has to be possible, even as a royal, if you are determined. (Princess Anne and Prince Edward spring to mind.)
Regarding their security, my understanding is that they now live in a gated complex.
Cynically, if however, you are trying to convince the British Royal Family to pay compensation for racist behaviour, then maybe drumming up publicity could be a tactic.
They live on a something-million-dollar estate that's probably fenced all around with a gate at the end of the driveway and fantastic security. It's in Montecito, which is a very wealthy coastal enclave just outside of Santa Barbara, California, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. A fair number of wealthy Hollywood types live there - it's beautiful, quiet, has great weather, and you can get to LA in 2 hours, sometimes less.
I did check royal press coverage before the last post, which was in response to yours @Golden Key, the last stories about Princess Anne were in November, in response to an episode of The Crown. Prince Edward and Sophie Wessex featured last week volunteering at a charity on his birthday.
Comments
I would find it offensive if the position was one of actual power over me. But it isn't. It looks like burden rather than a prize.
Yes. Until recently Italians weren't considered "white" in the strictest sense of the term.
Except that there was the long-standing perception of the Irish as an inherently inferior people. Race and whiteness are very malleable concepts. You're right that it's not just about skin color, but the scientific racism that originated in the Enlightenment was very different from the thinking that came before. The Romans didn't believe they were inherently superior to the people they conquered because of something in their bloodlines, they believed (to the extent they thought about it at all) that they were inherently superior because the kind of society they lived in had made them so.
Of course it is still not unknown for Northern Italians to see southerners as lass than human.
I recall someone commenting that the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was born an Italian-American but by the time he died he was white.
It probably helped that he spent his entire time as Associate Justice allying himself with white supremacists to shit on black and brown people.
There's that, but it was more a part of the late 20th century American project of maintaining a white majority by reclassifying as "white" people who had never been considered so before. (Italians, eastern Europeans, Spaniards but not other Hispanics, etc.) Racial unity achieved by people of all European backgrounds being considered "white".
Would that not solve the 'racial' problem at a stroke ?
Only when we find some aliens or orcs for white supremacists to hate.
Ain't that true!!
https://histoiresroyales.fr/charlie-hebdo-caricature-elizabeth-ii-etouffe-meghan-markle-george-floyd/
Some blacks have been considered white. African American history and family histories are full of accounts of those of obviously mixed origins passing for white. There are dozens of films and novels on the "tragedy" of their fate. During the Toronto Showboat controversy (was it 1991?) I recall preparing a briefing note-- my comment that all of the excitement ignored the basic plot element of the heroine passing for white was excised by some bright spark as being irrelevant.
Brazil and other countries are rather more fluid on what constitutes black or white, but in North America and parts of the Caribbean, slave codes, and Jim Crow laws following, focussed on the one-drop rule to ensure that nobody could escape the impact of these measures and an often-educated minority of the minority could be kept perpetually off-balance and politically impotent. This has coloured (sorry) identity and community issues ever since. Given the likelihood of Berber blood circulating in the Windsor bloodstream, purists could easily mark the Queen with the touch of the tarbrush, but we don't hear too much of that. Prince Harry could be an interesting guest on Henry Louis Gates Jr's Finding Your Roots.
As an aside, the British encouraged the immigration of Portuguese to Trinidad from the 1890s, writing (Command papers passim, where I gleaned this years ago) that while they were not white, they were European, and would mobilize the economic potential of the colony.
Pace @NOprophet_NØprofit such cartoons are empty titillation. These cartoons and much of the discussion seems aimed at loading the deeds of western society on to one family. Nobody will write a cheque for a reconciliation and reparations fund, and not an inch of ground will be returned to indigenous inhabitants.
The chocolate cake served up at the Buck House garden parties is very yummy. And I choose to believe that ER makes them herself....
Do you need PROOF for the resurrection?? Next, you'll be telling me that Prince Philip doesn't do the washing up afterwards.
I understand your point better. My view is that we (Canadians, generally, as I know them best) are in many ways hopefully looking around for ways to offload responsibilities, and for me such cartoons are: "Whew! now the bad guys are dealt with, I can have another beer."
But perhaps I oversimplify.
Too independent, I think is fair comment. She wanted to do things her way, rather than fitting in. Too self-sufficient? I don't see any sign of the Duchess being self-sufficient. She apparently reported depression and suicidal thoughts, caused by the treatment she perceived she was getting. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency. She seems to be concerned about what people think of her. That's not a sign of self-sufficiency.
As for racism justifying taking over a country and forcing your religion on them - cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, their religion). "Taking over a country and forcing your religion on them" describes a number of middle ages European wars - it's not a fundamentally racist thing. It's what countries that have gone to war with other countries have done since time immemorial.
Unless you want to regard any expression of "our way is better than your way" as racist, in which case you seem to rather devalue the word.
This is utter bollocks. Being distressed when people treat you like shit is not a lack of self-sufficiency. Not is it somehow weird or abnormal to be upset about people lying about you in newspapers. Come to that caring what other people think of you is normal, that’s how social interaction works. That is a different kettle of fish to expecting everyone to like you.
I'm not arguing that the treatment of First Nations people in Canada wasn't racist - I'm disputing the claim you quoted that only racism could drive a country to invade another and supplant its religion and culture. I'd argue that supplanting people's religion and culture was rather the norm for how countries invaded other countries since forever. I don't think that, for example, Norman attitudes towards the Saxons would be well described by what we call racism.
I don't think I can think of any examples of war offhand where the side with the dominant force has decided to limit itself to make it "fair". The Roman Empire spread because the Romans had trained, disciplined soldiers, and the enemy didn't.
I don't think that racism is the primary driver of taking over another country and destroying their religion and culture, but it justifies it. It also allows the dispossession of the inhabitants. The Normans became indistinguishable from the Saxons as they melded their cultures together, and language.
Nor me. The point may be that the morality of Rome expressly promoted that, and the morality of 19th and 20th century empire building pretends that it isn't like Rome. Save Nazi Germany perhaps.
Fixed quoting code, I hope. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Thank you for expressing this so well @Doublethink.
People will search for whatever figleaf of coverage will make the thing that they want to do compatible with their expressed morality. If "slaughter their men and rape their women" is normal behaviour in your society, you don't need an excuse. If ruthlessly exploiting your neighbour is a bit frowned upon in your society, then you need some pretense that you can hide behind. Various ideas of "scientific racism" provide a convenient figleaf.
I did not say it was either weird or abnormal - I said it wasn't self-sufficient. To my mind, someone who is self-sufficient does not require validation or emotional support from other people in order to function. If you need the support of other people, it seems to me you are by construction not self-sufficient.
I have no idea where "expecting everyone to like you" came from. I don't think very many people are truly self-sufficient; I think the Duchess is probably a bit under average on the self-sufficiency scale.
And again, the fact that the duchess reacted the way she did is not evidence of a less than normal amount of self-sufficiency.
While I score well on the Not Giving a Damn scale I am aware that I am not occupying a high-profile public position in which I am continually minutely scrutinised - and criticised. All this in a milieu of complicated rules and expectations (frequently implied as things one ought to know without being told).
I'm not surprised the poor woman baled out.
It’s the interview that confuses me. You’d think that publicity, along with the whole world talking about it and giving their own ‘take’ on her behaviour would be the last thing a person would want while recovering from time spent with a toxic, dysfunctional family.
I doubt if we’d be talking about them now if they had gone on to live a quiet life in the US, supporting charities etc etc.
There is a huge difference between not needing the approval of other people and being able to cope with active, vocal and constant disapproval, especially once the press get involved.
But Doublethink is right -- what you are describing above sounds more like some form of dysfunction.
Some people want to put their side of it out there.
Clearly.
My question is ‘to what purpose?’
As to the comment that we'd probably wouldn't be talking about them now, if they'd just gone on to live quietly and do charitable works: Does anyone really think they would've been let alone? And they *have* been doing charitable works. They have their own Archewell Foundation, and participate in other things. IIRC, they've worked out ways to keep involved with their former patronage causes. And they helped out a women's (?) shelter in Texas with the storm.
Meghan said she likes to rescue animals. They have a flock of rescued chickens, in a cute little coop styled like a playhouse or tiny cottage. (Shown very briefly.) They're there for Archie. Looks like the coop is in a wooded area.
Thinking that they'd have peace and quiet by now, if they'd just kept silent seems...naive...to me. There are tabloids in the US, too, plus journalists who report on royals. None of those will just turn off the switch and go on to something else. Same with the British tabloids, which have been known to make things up about Meghan. The US tabloids certainly do make up some stuff. I'm not sure if they've made anything up about Meghan and Harry,
No matter what H and M do, they won't simply be left alone. They started working so they could afford security to keep Archie and their forthcoming daughter safe. I'm guessing there's other security fairly nearby, because Oprah lives down the same road a ways.
They're (re)gaining some control over their lives. There was a period last year (IIRC) when The Firm wouldn't even let Meghan outside the building where she lived--she was too much a focus of the tabloids, even though she hadn't sought that nor done anything wrong. She couldn't go meet with her friends for support. She couldn't even go out with her *mother*!
Meghan and Harry have a better life now, and I hope it continues to greatly improve, and that they and their kids will be safe.
:votive:
Well, why are we all putting our side of it out here? For some people, it's instinctive. Not introverts, I guess.
Fair enough. You tell me how you define a "self-sufficient" person then. @NOprophet_NØprofit's quote, which I was arguing with, claimed that the Duchess was self-sufficient. From context, the implication was that this self-sufficiency was something that other people who married in to the royal family didn't have.
I think that's nonsense. But by all means, if you have a better definition of "self-sufficiency", bring it forth.
But if your expressed desire is to live a quiet life, surely an interview with a big name interviewer such as Oprah is counterproductive. All that will do is create a publicity storm.
Cynically, if however, you are trying to convince the British Royal Family to pay compensation for racist behaviour, then maybe drumming up publicity could be a tactic. Albeit, not terribly successful in the UK where according to a recent YouGov poll (link) their popularity has fallen to a new low.
Harry complaining they were cut off from money from the family when he is worth around £36 million did not go down well in a country reeling from the effects of Covid19 and Brexit, with high levels of unemployment and child poverty.
* I thought bailed out derived from bailing out water in boats, not baling hay?
You might take a look at my previous post, about 3 above yours.
We recorded the interview and watched it in several sittings; by the time we'd finished watching it felt like old news because it's been picked over so thoroughly in various media streams. I also wanted to get the perspective of a few members of the younger generation whom I saw at the weekend. I, for example - a *cough* member of the older generation *cough* here in the UK - grew up knowing that the female members of the family curtsey to the queen even in private as a mark of respect and recognition of her position. I didn't know whether that had reached the younger generation, but certainly my early-thirties-aged daughter knew.
I agree they were calm and dignified during the interview and some things needed saying. As others have observed, I can't think that giving an interview to a big name such as Oprah was the best way of saying it or was the way to a life away from the attention of the media which they say they want and which has to be possible, even as a royal, if you are determined. (Princess Anne and Prince Edward spring to mind.)
Regarding their security, my understanding is that they now live in a gated complex.
That certainly makes sense.