As Meghan Markle revealed that members of the British royal family expressed concern to her husband Prince Harry about the potential skin colour of the couple's first child, American tennis star Serena Williams on Monday highlighted how Meghan continuously lives her life with empathy and compassion.
"Meghan Markle, my selfless friend, lives her life -- and leads by example -- with empathy and compassion. She teaches me every day what it means to be truly noble. Her words illustrate the pain and cruelty she's experienced. I know firsthand the sexism and racism institutions and the media use to vilify women and people of color to minimize us, to break us down, and demonize us. We must recognize our obligation to decry malicious, unfounded gossip and tabloid journalism," Serena said in a Twitter post on Monday.
"The mental health consequences of systemic oppression and victimization are devastating, isolating, and all too often lethal. I want Meghan's daughter, my daughter, and your daughter to live in a society that is driven by respect. Keep in your memory the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control. Against such things there is no law," she added.
On Sunday, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle revealed that members of the British royal family expressed concern to her husband Prince Harry about the potential skin colour of the couple's first child.
As per People magazine, Meghan said that her son Archie was denied a royal title and royal protection and that there were "concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born." In her sit-down interview with Oprah, which aired on Sunday, Meghan said the palace decreed that Archie would not have any title, a move she says was "different from the protocol."
"They didn't want him to be a prince . . . which would be different from protocol, and that he wasn't going to receive security," the Duchess of Sussex told Oprah.
She added, "we have in tandem the conversation of, 'He won't be given security. He's not going to be given a title.' And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."
An astonished Oprah asked Meghan who made that comment, with the 'Suits' actor declining to answer, saying the revelation would be too damaging.
Regarding the conversations, which Meghan was not part of, Oprah asked, "Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem? Are you saying that?"
Meghan responded, "I wasn't able to follow up with why, but that -- if that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?"
Later in the interview, Oprah pressed Harry on the issue, asking him who was behind the comment. "That conversation I'm never going to share. It was awkward. I was a bit shocked," he said.
When Harry and Meghan were married in May 2018, Queen Elizabeth gave them the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Archie was entitled to the "courtesy title," Earl of Dumbarton. However, the couple announced shortly after his birth that they had not given him a courtesy title and he would be known as Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
Under current guidelines, great-grandchildren of the monarch are not princes or princesses, except for children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, which is why Prince William and Kate Middleton's children are Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.
Meghan and Harry's CBS special with Oprah marked the couple's first joint interview since their royal exit, which was recently made permanent. In the interview, the duo discussed the reasons behind their decision to step back from their royal duties, which they had first announced in January 2020.
Meghan and Harry officially stepped down from their roles as senior royals last year. Since last summer, Meghan and Harry have been living with Archie in their new home in Southern California, not far from Oprah's, near Santa Barbara.
Their interview with the former talk show queen and media mogul aired a month after Harry made a rare TV appearance on 'The Late Late Show With James Corden'. Markle and Harry, who tied the knot in 2018, welcomed their first child, Archie Harrison, in May 2019.
( With inputs from ANI )
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