Racial Labels and the Royal Wedding

The whole world seemed to be enchanted by the Royal wedding. The marriage of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle took place at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in May 2018. The courtship, wedding, and the beginning of their lives together was the stuff of fairy tales.

However, the American media just had to mention, on several occasions, Meghan’s ethnicity. Because her father was Caucasian and her mother was African-American they labeled her “mixed race”. What is this crap, there is only one race that we need to be concerned with; the human race. And, of course, virtually everyone in America, and the UK, are some mixture of various ethnic backgrounds. So what is the reliance of the term “mixed race”? In these times we should be morally and socially evolved enough that no further sub-divisions of the human race are required. The British press being more socially refined, did not mention this frequently like the American press did.

However, this got me to thinking of recent history and another “mixed race” celebrity. The past president of the US, Barack Obama. He, and the press chose to downplay his parentage ( Caucasian mother and African father). He was always referred to, in the press and elsewhere, as America’s first black president. He never got the “mixed race” label applied to him because it would not serve his purposes. Of course this was done because the collective consciences of the American people felt it was time for an African American to be president in order to demonstrate that racism was finally dead in the US. Of course, the very fact that he and the press felt that he needed a label is de-facto proof that racism is not dead.

So, two famous people with similar ethnicity get different labels by the media, depending on what distorted message they are trying to convey. I hate labels and I hate media distortions!