Meghan Markle's potential impact - or lack of - on black Britain
Across the UK, black Brits are welcoming Meghan and Harry's marriage - but not all are convinced she will improve their lives.
Saturday 19 May 2018 21:22, UK
Meghan Markle's marriage to Prince Harry is controversial. It polarises opinion. And perhaps nowhere more so than within the black community itself.聽
Nobody I spoke to was against the union. Everyone wished the couple a long, happy wedded life together.
But the idea that she can bring change to black British lives was dismissed as "ludicrous".
The American actress was described as "not black enough" by many people I spoke to. That has nothing to do with her skin tone, it is because she describes herself as bi-racial, not black.
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I went to Birmingham City University to meet students on the country's first black studies course. I talked to eight students and not one believed the marriage could significantly impact their lives.
Georgia-May Mcintosh told me: "Before she became part of the Royal Family she didn't speak up much in terms of black activism.
"She's just focused on feminism so if she didn't speak about it before I don't really think she's going to speak about it now.
"There are still going to be rules she has to abide by. She isn't going to be allowed to speak about it."
Her fellow student Jessica De Sousa Vieira Lopes rejected any idea that Meghan could represent black British women.
"I don't feel like she represents me as a young black woman," she said.
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"The fact that she calls herself bi-racial, she's trying to keep that white privilege in there.
"I guess when someone asks me where I'm from I say I'm black, I do have a mixture in me but I see myself and I embrace my black roots and that's what I am.
"So the fact is that she's not embracing it."
Many thought that Meghan represented a Western ideal of beauty and had she been much darker skinned and wore her hair in an Afro instead of the straightened hairstyle she favours then she would have been rejected by the royals and Prince Harry would not have been given permission to marry her.
"I mean it's not that obvious that she's black. She doesn't actually look black she looks… I thought she was Hispanic," said Malieka Monique Selassie.
She added: "We're in 2018. We shouldn't even be having these conversations. We shouldn't be surprised that there's a black person in the Royal Family. There's diversity everywhere, there're interracial couples everywhere.
"The whole marriage and, you know, Harry picking her... we all know that Harry is the rebel of the Royal Family and he's pretty much able to do whatever he wants to do because he's not going to sit on the throne. There would have been no way that William would have been able to come home with anybody that looked like Meghan."
These are strong words but the people who speak them are entitled to hold such firm views. They are black Britons and their thoughts are forged by their own experiences.
But they are not shared by all black Britons.
In the Prince of Wales pub in Brixton, I found 55-year-old Paul Rowe watching the wedding on a giant screen. He was there with his sister and his wife.
Paul was quite emotional when I asked him what Meghan's wedding to Harry meant to him.
"As a father to a beautiful, mixed-race daughter. It's a very big deal. My partner is white and to see this elevation of mixed partnerships… well, words can't describe it.
"To see Prince Charles, the Royal Family, the church, with everything that is going on at the moment… I think it speaks for itself.
"I am emotional because she's somebody's daughter and I have a daughter, a beautiful lady and to see the possibilities, that prior to today did not exist as a black father of a mixed parentage child… the Sky's the limit."
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Paul's optimism was shared by Robert Myers. He invited me to his house in Feltham where he was holding a party to celebrate the wedding. As the champagne corks popped and the fairy cakes were passed around to the gathered guests, Robert could barely conceal his joy.
Smiling from ear-to-ear, he said: "To see a member of the Royal Family marrying somebody from an African background - a mixed race person - that's a very big milestone of achievement.
"I am very proud that we have one of our own in the Royal Family. Great Britain is a melting pot and for the Royal Family to take such a big step accepting as lady of colour into the family, that's a very huge magnificent step."
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A fairytale wedding maybe, but nobody expects Meghan Markle to wave a magic wand to suddenly improve the lives of black Britons.
But it is significant change - and almost all agree that can only be a good thing.
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