An understandable attitude, but I approve of things which may change racist AF institutions.
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I’d like to retire them all with a reasonable pension and explore the idea of a republic, or maybe several republics, but we’re stuck with them.
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I don’t give a damn about the royal family itself, but I care about racism quite a lot.
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If her reputation is well known, then why would they have let her near their kid in the first place?
The only reason I could see the oddsmakers leaving here off is
a) It’s a sure bet that the oddsmakers would lose money, or
b) It’s a sure bet that Harry & Megan knew what would come out if she came into the room and actively blocked her from getting into the room. Her opinion doesn’t count if they actively block hearing anything she would say…
It’s not “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. It’s “build the moat, load the cannon, and pull up the drawbridge if that dragon draws near the kids”.
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These are money line odds:
So in the example above, if you bet $100 on the perpetrator being Charles, and you were right, you’d win $600.
And frankly, Philip is an absolute steal at +1500
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In some alternative time line there is a “Meg and Harry’s Fish and Chips” stand in Brighton, with a nice view of the beach, and the only drama is the wind came up and sent the table umbrella bouncing away …
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Naturally, racism and social issues matter at lot to me. I’m just annoyed at the overall fervor that royals get covered for, good and bad. I do want them to be taken to task for their bullshit but really I’d rather them not be a thing at all
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Well monarchy is kind of based on mythical “good breeding.” So it is no real surprise that people that have based their privilege as royalty on having “better blood” than commoners or even mere nobility might be harboring some racists.
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I hear you, I’m an anti-authoritarian yank, and they look like a symbol of tyranny that the British would be better off without.
This one feels a little different. There’s some pretty ugly, overt racism on display, and it’s worth looking at. We all kinda knew (to echo @Melizmatic and others, it’s gonna be all of them), but now there’s a tangible, undeniable example.
I still don’t hold much hope that the British public will turn on them, but one can hope. And now I get to dismiss any future celebratory articles on “why do you care about racist descendants of tyrants?”
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The fact that people are now betting on this is perhaps a sign that now might be a good time to do away with old-fashioned things like monarchies. Just my 0.02 dollars.
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Apart from UK royalty being a huge tourism draw (like Disneyland and zoos) what, in any practical way, have the royals done that would earn them a pension? (If that question appears to have a certain tone, then please excuse it; I really want to know what non-tourism benefits the UK receive from the royals.) Thx!
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Well, no.
Monarchy is based on inbreeding.
And could someone refresh my memory? Didn’t the royal family strip Harry of his titles and kick him out of the UK because he married her in the first place? Seems to me the blatent racism of the family was on full display right from the start. Nothing in the interview was at all a suprise to me, other than Harry’s [probable] fib that it wasnt the queen herself that was causing the rukus.
It wasnt that long ago that britain was still exploiting its colonies and treating the local populations like subhuman dirt. The royal family was built around that. The queen is ancient as hell, was she the monarch India revolted against?
Not to belabor the obvious; but it was a conversation that happened while Ms Markle was still pregnant, so they might not have had an active choice in which offensive relative they had to contend with while at the palace.
From the sounds of it, it does not seem like Prince Harry had much power, aside from making the choice to step away from the royal family for the sake of his wife and children.
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Difficult, first of all be aware European royal houses pretty much invented the management and development of public personae long, long before the modern celebrity culture. You can bet your house the English monarchy is good at it too! (Case in point: Edward VIII…)
So the picture you get of any of them from the press was carefully manufactured and managed, a creation of fiction as much as Donald Duck is. If any nasty stain does percolate through the putrid mess under it must be big indeed.
I fear none of them are totally free of racism. Very few people are after all and this lot is so disconnected from reality their misconceptions and biases are bound to have remained throughout their life. Checking your own privilege for example requires a certain other-person’s-shoes-perspective that they will never be able to develop. It would be very hard for any of them not to be racist or classist.
Harry was the exception but remember he fell in love with Meghan, just the outside influence of a minority that can wake a person up.
Now there are types of racists like there are types of cancer and here there are a lot of differences(*). Prince Philip for example is the totally vapid racist, not nasty by nature but utterly oblivious or indifferent to the effects of his remarks. Michael of Kent on the other hand is seems close to his “great” uncle(**) Edward VIII and a very nasty piece of work indeed.
And remember again, that the worst you see in public would have been filtered, touched-up, or even downright censored by people with deep pockets and long arms…
(* Trivial and irrelevant differences to the victims I am sure, but it is in my nature to categorise things. Like I said, it is a kind of cancer: Many types, none of them are good. How they affect you is maybe different but that difference can be very academic.)
(**I Think? I usually fact check things like that but I can’t be arsed now. Family at least…)
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That was before he met Meghan… What I said was that falling in love with Meghan and her influence cleansed(*) him of some(…) of his biases and preconceptions. This process caused by seeing the world clearly through another lens is what changed him and what most members of the royal family never experience. It is hard to say he is still a diehard racists after he married Meghan and gave up most of his royal prerogatives for her.
Harry, whatever his faults and sins is the person who stepped out of the cave and saw things those still in there could never accept. He ain’t perfect but in this matter he is more aware than others in his family, which admittedly is a low bar.
(* I think this is the mot juste 
)
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Thing is, no-one cares about Princess Michael of Kent. She might be a princess, but so distantly related to the core royals she might as well not exist.
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Terrific piece - have some Marina Hyde as a thank-you:
‘ A child being a quarter African American is somewhat less of a talking point than one side of that child’s family having repeatedly bred with its cousins for half the 19th and 20th centuries.’
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Harry still has his titles, including the ones (Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel) that he was given because he married her.
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Plot twist: The one that made the racist comments was Harry. 
