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So...the interminable Duchess Megan scandal is in the news again. It seems like with Charles becoming King and Harry soon to have a book out everyone is going back to their corners to relitigate this.
(For those of you who were complaining about frivolous Anglosphere topics : you're welcome :))
Last time I actually dug into this the conclusion I came to was that there was essentially a cultural clash between Hollywood and royal values. I similarly felt that the geographic divide in the reactions (Americans seeing her treatment as obviously racist, there being a more mixed British reaction) was a product of clashing ideas about work and just how awful life could be for a royal of any race (my take being that the Americans vastly underestimated the relevance of classism and foreign culture - since they tend to see this stuff through a mainly racial lens, other factors either merely being aggravating ones or just dogwhistles)
Recently, a new book based on the Courtier's perspective had excerpts published in the Times that go into more detail.. It had some interesting tidbits that were reported years ago.
The take of Palace courtiers is - unsurprisingly - that they tried to be accommodating but a combination of culture clashes made this impossible: Megan not respecting that the Palace staff had no interest in being called on late, Megan being directly hostile and rude, Megan simply not understanding how the Royal family worked (as that Palace Papers' excerpt puts it "she thought she had more seniority [than she did]").
...
...
The excerpts paint a picture of what is, essentially, a "girlboss". In multiple senses of the word . How you feel about Meghan shapes which girlboss you see. From what I've heard from pro-Meghan Americans keen on Royal gossip the Palace staff essentially come across as lazy and incapable of handling a driven woman who has strong expectations for the work ethic of her staff. To the people on the other side she comes across as a crass American determined to drive "her" workers into the ground in the name of her empowerment, incapable of adapting to a more traditional organization (one that has more...refined means of showing aggression*) - aka a "girlboss" in the pejorative sense.
Does this really come down to just a different work culture in the US vs UK? Cause, to be honest, my stereotype was that UK was basically European Canada on this: there are a few differences (and they never stop bragging about them where they feel they're ahead) but work culture and its expectations are much closer than with other states. The Palace staff sound positively French at some points of this! Is the Palace just some oasis sheltered from the rat race that envelopes other parts of Britain?
* I'm not convinced that the Palace considered her behavior immoral. At worst, it was probably considered...uncouth.
First, all of this is celebrity gossip, and it's not just the gutter press or tabloid rags who eat it up with a spoon, even the 'serious' papers generally have royal correspondents. Tittle-tattle and controversy sell papers, so there is interest in having 'exclusives' and 'insider stories'. Even twenty-five years after her death, papers will still run articles on and about Princess Diana.
Second, a good deal of this is manufactured, and silly stories to boot. Before Meghan came along, Kate (as a commoner married in) was subject to the same kind of "she's a nightmare to work with, she doesn't understand the culture, she's too big for her boots" stories. As well as stories about who had the better arse, her or her sister. Yes, that level. Where drama doesn't exist, the media make it up, because conflict is needed for a juicy story. 'Tell all' books by courtiers and insiders and close friends and what-not have long been serialised by the media, and they whip up interest by giving juicy extracts like the "Meghan is a nightmare" one. 'Meghan and Kate are deadly rivals' is the story all the media love, and now Kate has been rehabilitated as the Good One to Meghan's Wicked Witch.
Third, there probably is a lot of behind-the-scenes (and not so behind) power tussles going on, especially now that Charles is finally king and William has moved into the position of Prince of Wales. Harry should be moving up as well, except that he and Meghan (or looks more likely Meghan) resigned as senior royals. So she definitely doesn't understand the role or how the monarchy works, and is behaving like a Hollywood celebrity and treating staff accordingly. The precedent of how the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were eased out is always there, and Meghan cut off her nose to spite her face when she walked out in an ultimatum. Doing chat show interviews about racism may go down well in the USA, but they don't make the Sussexes look good to the family back in Britain, and right now Meghan is doing all she can to bring down the fate of Fergie (Sarah Ferguson, ex-wife of Prince Andrew) on herself - reduced to having to go the chat-show circuit and make money wherever she can because she put herself beyond the pale. Just because you marry into the family doesn't automatically mean you are now rich; the 'working royals' are the ones who carry out various state duties, and they get paid from the monarch's allotment which is a combination of personal wealth and government income. If you don't want to do the duties, as Meghan allegedly didn't, then you don't get paid anything (Andrew, because of the Virginia Giuffre scandal, was stripped of titles and awards and right now is in limbo about his finances, for instance). Harry doesn't have any money of his own (unless his mother left him something, I don't know) because up to now he's been paid the allowance as a working royal. He doesn't own any estates or property personally. EDIT: Oops, I forgot that he was created Duke of Sussex as a revived title, and that is hereditary. So he is possessor of whatever estate goes with that.
We don't know what is really going on, and all the 'insider tell-all' books won't let us know, either.
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For what it's worth, speaking as a Brit, I have little sympathy for Meghan. When you marry into the Royal family (or any British aristocratic family), you're buying into a whole host of complex norms and customs, and it's on you to conform to them, at least if you want to enjoy the benefits that come with Royal status. The key specific norm here is noblesse oblige - as a member of the Royal family, you need to be more generous, more magnanimous, more gracious than would be expected of a member of the general public, and this should be reflected in your dealings with your personal staff. Deep down, most Brits regard the Royal family as servants of the people, whose persistent anomalous status and privileges are continually earned via service. This extends to treating those in your employment with special gentleness and care. Of course, not all British royals live up to this standard, but those who don't tend to be judged harshly for it by the public in much the same way as Meghan.
I think there's a broader cultural divide here too. I remember on one occasion when my mum visited me in the US, she was appalled at the way that she heard some people treat servers in restaurants and assistants in shops, essentially barking demands at them. From an American standpoint, that makes a fair amount of sense - he who pays the piper (or pays the tip) picks the tune. By contrast, in the UK, there is much less of an overt hierarchical relationship between customer and service provider - there are strong norms of politeness and deferentiality on both sides. You don't say, "Hey, excuse me, this steak isn't properly cooked," you say, "Sorry to bother you, but is it possible that this steak is a little undercooked? If so, would you mind giving it a few more minutes on the grill?" Of course, as is always the case in the UK, there are class differences in how this kind of interaction would play out, but across the board there would be a greater expectation of graciousness in client-provider interactions. I don't know how much this carries over to white-collar office work, but there are definitely strong elements of it in British academia. I suspect that large multinational companies have their own globalised standards, though.
I don't know whether Meghan is just a bit bitchy, or whether Harry failed to adequately prepare her for the expectations that would be placed on her shoulders. However, things like the Oprah interview played out terribly with most Britons; going on American TV and airing the dirty laundry of the Royal Family leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
If I believe all this sort of gossip, how Meghan allegedly behaved is how Hollywood celebs allegedly behave to their staffers. It definitely is a culture clash, where for the royal household, they expect a different kind of treatment from their masters, whereas for Meghan she is The Talent and they are there to serve her interests 24/7.
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Even in America, I would say that is generally seen as rude, at least in every social circle I've ever been in. It of course happens with more or less frequency, as every server ever will tell you. But it's also one of the red-flags women talk about - see how your date treats the waitstaff, that's how he'll treat you when no one is around.
To your point about cultural differences, I would be genuinely confused by the second approach. Unless it was just obviously raw, my first thought would be "Are you asking me to taste your steak and decide if it matches my preferences? Why?"
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Even from an American perspective, what she's doing is not acceptable. You might be the boss, or the customer, or whatever. But that doesn't give you the right to say things like "If there was literally anyone else I could ask to do this, I would be asking them instead of you." If someone's work is actually that bad, then you fire them or take your business elsewhere. You don't take it upon yourself to verbally beat that person down. I realize that she probably doesn't have the power to fire these staffers. But that still doesn't give her the right to treat people like that.
I mean, maybe the reports about her are one-sided or exaggerated. But based on the accounts in @Tanista's post, this woman is a horrible boss. And worse still, she seems to trying to get sympathy for "I'm black so they mistreat me". She isn't even black, and even if she were, it doesn't make any issue she faces the result of racism. Just a thoroughly bad showing from her, it sounds like.
Everything I’ve heard from American ‘servants’- high end hotel employees, butlers, etc- is that blue tribe new money- basically celebrities, wealthy activists, and certain wealthy lawyers and doctors- are the absolute worst customers because they’re not big on boundaries, accepting corrections, etc and usually don’t know how to treat the staff(and think that any behavior is potentially acceptable so long as they’re willing to pay monetarily for it). So the idea that an American celebrity joining the British royals would treat the staff poorly doesn’t shock me.
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This seems a bit crazy to me. I work in television and those snippets happen weekly to the crew by the talent. That’s the world she came from. Not saying it’s okay but if those are that bad then we’ve got an entire industry that needs to be dismantled and reassembled.
Here’s the famous Christian Bale outburst: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0auwpvAU2YA
I hear talent or above the line folks dressing down people just like that all the time. The only difference is Bale’s outburst was leaked.
This happened to Hollywood itself (but on a different topic) five years ago. Harvey Weinstein's behavior was "just the world [they live in]" until all of a sudden it wasn't. Maybe someday that'll happen regarding this.
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Yes, of course it's not acceptable when that happens in Hollywood. I don't disagree that it's happening a lot. But when you say "then we have an entire industry that should be dismantled" (or presumably reformed), you seem to be saying it like that's not a reasonable thing to do. I think that's exactly what should happen if they're treating people like shit regularly.
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No, there are some rat-infested places in Britain (like the City and Westminster) but in general people value their families, communities, and leisure (except they say "leh-jur" rather than "lee-jur"). The aristocracy is an elite, but it's different from e.g. the Washington Policy elite. It's into longstanding loyalty, implicit agreements that span decades or centuries, predictable norms etc.
If you want to get a bollocking from a sociopathic woman in return for a 0.5% chance of becoming a high ranking political figure and a 99% chance of being forgotten by your employer in 10 years, you work at Downing Street, not Buckingham Palace. If you want a guaranteed heartfelt handshake with the kindly monarch (who fondly remembers you dressing them when they were just 3 or 25 years old) when you are old and grey, you work at Buckingham Palace.
This kind of loyalty culture is one reason why even republicans I know who joined the army often become at least moderately royalist, because military-types also tend to like the idea of stable customs, long-term bonds, and implicit agreements.
It is the model of the Old Family Retainer, even if that is mostly fiction. It's Batman and Alfred, where Alfred is "I've served your father before you, Master Bruce, as I am serving you now" and there is no way Bruce would tear into Alfred as a mere hired hand 😁
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It's a combination of factors. On the one hand I'm actually rather sympathetic to Meghan because I deeply suspect the palace is full of blue-blooded slackers earning extremely comfortable salaries from the taxpayer for doing not very much, not very quickly. On the other hand, unless you're a character in The Thick Of It there is a baseline expectation of politeness in the workplace in Britain that probably exceeds the American norm, and no-doubt this expectation is turned up to 11 at Kensington Palace.
This reinforces my pre-existing opinion on this entire saga, which is that I don't like anyone involved and would rather like to do away with the lot of them.
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I just realized that former Governor General Julie Payette's staff abuse scandal was going on about the same time as this. Technically she was appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister's Office. Realistically, the GG is appointed by the PMO. It even sounds like the same kind of culture clash between ceremonial staff and an outsider who doesn't understand the power dynamics.
Take the whole question of the freebies, for example. As a Hollywood actress, Meghan is used to the idea that designers etc. lend you their goods so you can be seen wearing them on the red carpet. That doesn't work for a royal, because accepting gifts bestows "By Appointment" on them, and there are rules about that.
Charles himself got into a lot of trouble over accepting donations in order to fund his charities. So "but why can't we keep the free stuff companies send us?" is a very touchy issue.
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I continue to be baffled by people's interest in this family. Is it anything more than a British flavored Kardashian family? I understand the logic behind letting them keep their nice things after dissolving the monarchy but I can't fathom why I should care about them.
Ah that's right, the Kardashians, heirs to a thousand-year tradition and noble bloodline, models of discretion, and the ceremonial heart of a nation.
You're giving ugly credence to American stereotypes by equating a woman/family famous for a sex tape with actual royalty.
This is just so much PR noise to me. They were professionally born. They have done literally nothing to earn my respect.
Sneer if you want, the old gods are dead and worshiping them is as contemptable to me as the new gods. I'm not a fan of Musk worship either but at least he's doing something with his wealth. If the Royals all disappeared tomorrow what actual impact would that have on the world besides the secondary effects of their fans being upset? I don't hate them and don't wish them ill will but I cannot understand why rational people think they matter because some tiny fraction of their genetic ancestry was William the conqueror who took the throne by force combined with nearly random decisions about who counts as royal over the years.
If this is a uniquely American perspective than I don't think highly of the rest of the world.
Most cultures have semi-mythical ceremonial figurheads chosen through randomness to fulfill some role and say exactly what they're supposed to with little to no personality of their own.
In Nepal they have those pre-pubescent girls whose feet never touch the ground, in Sweden they have Greta, In America they have pageant girls and child celebrities, and in the UK they have the royals.
America has no such thing, at least not anymore.
The Royals are the embodiment of British identity. At home people can project on to them the essential British values they hold dear, and with other heads of state they can be the people's avatar.
The American President used to fulfill this role, but with fracturing American identity, the President is no longer is the embodiment of American identity. He can't be, what essential American values are left that he can stand for?
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I take your point but I'm not sure the pageant girls and child celebrities as standins for royalty really fits. Pageant girls are very much not a national past time and child celebrities aren't really talked about much among adults. I'm not positive who I'd propose as alternatives, maybe sports stars, it might have been pastors/priests in the past.
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the royals aren't exactly models of discretion. the tabloids wouldn't be so interested in them if they were
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I’ve heard before from the sorts of people who do domestic work and related(high end hotel concierges and the like) that old money red tribe adjacent people- think the country club crowd, or oil executives, or exotic game ranch proprietors- are preferable to work for because, although their security tends to be jumpier and better armed, unlike the blue tribe money(celebrities and rich lawyers) they understand what servants are, are used to having them, and know how to maintain boundaries with them, while also being friendly enough.
This seems like the closest American division to the royal family/Meghan markle clash.
Even within blue tribe nouveau riche there's allegedly this split:
It honestly sounds too neat, like one of those stories society tells itself until seems like it can't be otherwise (e.g. stuff like "power reveals", which I loathe) but this person is speaking from experience.
I suppose we can apply this logic to Meghan herself. I don't know if you would consider her B-list in Hollywood but she was probably B-list in the family. Interestingly - and the article outright states this - Harry himself could be considered lower down the totem pole than one might think (the phrase is "heir and the spare" after all)
This is probably exacerbated by being under two layers of authority. Sure, Harry is a Prince and his brother will be sovereign and that all sounds glamorous to foreigners. But they were two steps away from the Throne under a monarch who was basically an institution of her own, courtiers who answered to her and not Harry and a dad with his own ideas about what the monarchy should be.
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A second article I saw on the same topic has another "what movie are you watching?" sort of thing
Once again: reasonable behavior from an American girlboss who thinks this is how you resolve issues in the workplace? Or deliberate, malicious planning from an abusive and savvy operator?
Yes.
Corpo is a slur for a reason.
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My coworker brought this up just recently. When asked by another coworker why the Royal Family seemed (disputedly) to have it out for Megan Markle, they - they're trans, and by far the most politically vocal on the team - responded with "racism." The co-worker who had brought it up suggested it was because she was American. No, they don't like the Duchess because she's black, full stop.
I do agree that the racism angle is mostly meaningless in the UK. I didn't know she was meant to be black, even when I was watching Suits a few years ago. On the other hand, my wife's grandmother is in her late 80s talked disappointingly of the prince marrying "some half-caste". So data point of 1.
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The problem is that, at least on a social construct view of race, she's not black in Britain, but she IS American. She can self-identify as black if she wants, but one thing that almost everyone seems to agree upon regarding race is that it's not decided by self-identification.
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A fairly large problem with this argument is that under 'the English gaze' Meghan doesn't parse as black. In this country our black communities mostly are only two or three generations old so there are relatively few very light-skinned black people. Moreover, this isn't Norway - even going back centuries there has always been a non-trivial proportion of ethnically English people at least as 'swarthy' as Meghan. Personally, I did not realise that Meghan was officially black until the media kindly informed me, and that's as a young person with an unhealthy interest in the culture war. I suspect this to have been a common experience among Brits.
So, if we are to argue that racism was a large factor in Megan's treatment by the Royal Family, we must suppose that either (a) the British aristocracy are unusually well attenuated to the American racial classification system or (b) that despite not sub-consciously categorising Meghan as black, the Royals were racist to her on account of the consciously received knowledge that she is of African-American descent.
Now I accept that an argument can be made for both these cases, but neither seems obviously true to me. More probable is the suggestion that she was disliked for being American.
Also we have a fairly common thing where common chavvy white girls will fake tan to the point of looking like Meghan or darker, much like the Ganguro style girls of Japan, and this is particularly common among footballers' wives and other shallow fame-seekers -- of which Meghan is definitely one. So I presume most people just thought she was yet another famehunting fake tanned slag who landed the famous man she hunted. Her level of entitlement and attention seeking (watch her unnervingly find the camera in any room and stare directly into it with a plastic smile!) certainly made that angle seem likely to me.
Meghan doesn't look any darker than Victoria Beckham, for instance.
Whatever you think of her character, I can't imagine anyone thinking she's a 'famehunting fake tanned slag', since she was already quite famous, is obviously not fake tanned, and is undeniably elegant and attractive - a world away from the stereotypical Essex sambuca girl.
She can't have been all that famous, as I never heard of her before she married into the British royal family. I'm not claiming to be an infallible index of famous Americans or anything, but if I haven't even heard someone's name in passing I don't believe they're actually particularly famous. Being that famous means that almost everyone, if not everyone, actually has heard of you before.
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I would be willing to bet that less than 1% of people here had ever heard of her before she became entangled with the Prince.
Just because she's not obviously fake tanned (i.e. badly and cheaply) doesn't mean she couldn't be at all. Good fake tan exists and it looks pretty much like her.
"tactless and rude" somewhat undermines this interpretation of her. Every single part of her screams fake. But if that's what you're into...
Seems a Prince's wife is just a tier up from footballer's wife, to me. She might be higher quality, but she's of the same taxonomy.
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In my former British colony of a nation half-black people like Meghan are considered "half-caste" and it was a legitimately distinct category from black or white. But they are/were considered to fall between the two in status
So it's simultaneously possible for her to be not-black to people and to be different or less than.
As I said: I'm skeptical that this can all be boiled down to racism (the one concrete racist accusation they raised about the Royal Family - someone inquired about her son's skin tone- is one I've heard in black families...) but it's not impossible they actually are somewhat racist, on top of classist, snobbish and distrustful of foreigners (especially divorced Americans)
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I'm American, and she doesn't look black to me either. After hearing about it for the first time when it made the news last year, I now think... she still doesn't look black, actually. Her hair and nose especially. Unless she's displaying stereotypically black speech patterns or something in private, the race angle here is transparently silly.
She's actually almost certainly had a nose operation to narrow her nose, which was previously one of her more African-American features.
(crap site, but the pictures don't lie https://radaronline.com/photos/prince-harry-meghan-markle-nose-job-plastic-surgery-photos/)
So she made herself less pretty?
As an american, to me she looks ambiguously something-or-other; if her eyes were darker I'd think she was some manner of hispanic. I'd certainly not call her black without adding "...ish"
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I doubt Meghan would be considered black in Norway either. She certainly wouldn’t here in Finland.
Nobody thinks she's black. She's black in the same way that you ain't black if you don't vote for Biden. It's more of an honorific than a description, and the charges of racism are transparently cynical. To assert that she is black is to signal tribal allegiance and dare anyone to point out the madness. This is a very real case of see deer, say horse. It is perhaps fitting that your trans colleague would insist on doing so the most strongly.
I'm pretty sure you got users mixed up there. I have no trans colleague...
Right, I meant Pongahl's trans colleague.
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I don't think she would be considered black in the US, except by people who have an ideological interest in her being considered as such.
She probably wouldn’t be described as such by someone passing her on the street, but if she were, say, an HR lady or secretary or what have you instead of a princess, then ‘hey, Meghan the new HR admin is black’ probably wouldn’t surprise anyone.
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