Netflix’s ‘Harry & Meghan’ revisits a royal’s 2018 racist Blackamoor spit incident. Here’s what happened.

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Meghan Markle, left; Princess Michael of Kent, right. Christ Jackson/Getty Images; Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images

Netflix’s ‘Harry & Meghan’ docuseries tackles several controversial incidents relating to racism and the monarchy, including the time Princess Michael of Kent wore a Blackamoor brooch at an event with Meghan Markle in 2018.

Princess Michael of Kent, formerly known as Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, married Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent in 1978.

In 2018, she made headlines when she wore a Blackamoor brooch, a style of art widely seen as racist by art curators and historians to the Queen’s Christmas lunch, where Meghan was also present.

Blackamoor is a style of art that often depicts dark-skinned people in menial positions

The style dates back to 16th and 17th century Europe. It’s considered controversial because the motif features exotic depictions of enslaved Africans and servants, Awam Amkpa, an associate professor of theater and African studies at NYU, previously told Insider.

Princess Michael later apologized through a spokesperson.

“The brooch was a gift and had been worn several times before. Princess Michael is truly sorry and distressed that it offended her,” her rep said in a statement in 2018.

Princess Michael of Kent was heavily criticized for wearing a Blackamoor brooch in 2018. Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images

It wasn’t the first time Princess Michael had been at the center of a racism controversy.

In 2004, a group of black patrons of a New York restaurant said the princess told them to “go back to the colonies” during an argument over their noise level, the New York Post reported. era.

Lord John Taylor of Warwick, who served as Britain’s first black government special adviser and was the only black member of the House of Lords when appointed in 1996, condemned remarks witnesses attributed to the Princess .

The story continues

“That’s bigotry, that’s racism,” he told the New York Post in 2004. “He says, ‘Go back to where you came from when we ruled the world. “”

Her spokesperson denied the report, telling the Post that Princess Michael “categorically denies making a racial slur” and “any suggestion that the Princess has made such a comment is false.”

“One of the realities of life in Britain”

The royal family has been accused of turning a blind eye and, in some cases, even enabling racism since the early years of the monarchy, Insider’s Mikhaila Friel, Rachel Hosie and Taiyler Simone Mitchell previously reported. Buckingham Palace has denied these accusations.

For example, Queen Elizabeth I was linked to the slave trade in Britain in the 1500s, a historical fact that Queen Elizabeth II has never publicly acknowledged or apologized for. More recently, Prince Philip was known for his controversial sense of humor and often made remarks at royal engagements that got him in hot water, such as comparing Ethiopian art to “the kind of thing that my daughter would bring art lessons back to school” in 1965. .

Some members of the royal family have taken responsibility for their own racist behavior, such as Prince Harry learning to recognize his own unconscious biases after wearing a Nazi costume to a party as a youth.

“In this family, you’re part of the problem rather than the solution. And there’s a huge level of unconscious bias,” he said in the Netflix docuseries, streaming now. “The problem with unconscious bias is that it’s actually nobody’s fault. But once it’s been pointed out or identified in yourself, then you have to correct it. It’s Education is awareness. And it’s a constant work in progress for everyone, including me.”

Afua Hirsch, journalist and author of “Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging”, appeared in the docuseries to provide more historical context to the Blackamoor spit incident.

“When I heard about Meghan at an event where a member of her future family was wearing a Blackamoor brooch, I wasn’t very surprised because one of the realities of life in Britain is that if you walk into a palace or a stately home or anywhere that represents tradition, you are likely to be confronted with racist imagery,” she said. “There are murals on the walls, sculptures on the ceiling, which depict slaves in a way that glorifies the institution of slavery.”

Representatives for Princess Michael and Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Read the original Insider article

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