We Could Care Less About The Royal Family

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How shocking, that the institution that colonised 90% of the world, led the slave trade and destroyed entire cultures continues to be racist 50 years later. Sensationalist headlines and "shocking reveal" articles tell us otherwise, tell us about a "Firm" , and there was "major tea spilt" in the interview with Oprah(tea that of course, was also taken forcibly from China and India).

 Despite the major contractual bonds made between US broadcasters and the meager $9 million dollar profit Oprah makes amidst a pandemic, the average viewer is moved to sympathy by Meghan's experience living with the royals. She describes her alienation and how she was unawares indoctrinated into archaic customs. She talks about bullying, slander, misogyny and blatant racism, which culminates in questions about Archie's skin colour and her own suicidal thoughts. 

What is surprising then, is not the racism of a historically oppressive and only relatively inactive monarchy, but the reactions to the interview. The large swathes of conservative Britons, fully aided by the very explosive, nauseating mockery of journalism that is the rhetoric of The Sun and Piers Morgan, are willing to dismiss the struggles of a single woman fighting against an institution that has forbade her from any individualism. It is this toxic nationalism and a pathological love for a monarchy and whatever symbolic culture it represents, that makes them look past institutional racism and harassment because it dares to be anti-national, and by this, ordinary people are roped into believing that it means something valuable to their identity, when to begin with, the persistence of the monarchy serves only a symbol of persevering classism, a reminder of colonial horrors, and of course, a very large and well coordinated marketing campaign that profits directly off of the amount of television and gossip column airtime it receives. 

This means that despite all the conversations sparked about racism and microaggressions, about taking women's mental health seriously, and about suffocation - that should be taken at face value regardless of Harry and Meghans identity, there is also controversy. Every second spent debating who is to blame is simply an affirmation of the monarchy's power and influence, as it bathes even more in obscurity, code names and allegations that will only ever remain allegations. Though this interview antagonises people within the institution who are "accused of racism", so its power is not directly questioned or addressed in wider discourse, and it's convenient for the institution that this issue is picked up by tabloids and soon consumed by new trends, and not sparking what could be called seditious behaviour or a threat to the monarchy.

In order to then understand why we are debating the revelations of the interview, the nature of the sheer monstrosity of power accumulated by the royal family must be examined. They seem to be only performative, cultural emblems, but the Queen, alongside at some point being the wealthiest woman in the world, was revealed to have influenced legislation "beyond what lobbyists could dream of" to hide her wealth. She is also the head of the Commonwealth, a group of 54 nations that are all past colonial conquests, and her influence extends to their inner workings till today. The royal family is the physical manifestation of whiteness. The monarchy has never once acknowledged, let alone apologised or provide reparation for its horrific actions that include the African slave trade, the East India Company and the Aboriginal genocide. Rather, they continue to profit from property like Kensington and Hampton Palace that were built using money from slave traders like Edward Colston(whose statue was toppled in Bristol earlier this year).

The very nature of this political and economic power is so fragile, as this interview reveals a delicate dance of pageantry that is a requirement of membership in this figurehead.

What is funny at the end is that it seems utterly radical to suggest anything akin to abolishment of the Queens overarching, matriarchal power, as to most this is complete blasphemy in a nation whose identity seems to increasingly depend the enforcement of immovable social hierarchy, scandal, and the pompous, narcissistic, "privilege for the sake of privilege" that will be around for a long time to come unless England has a difficult but necessary conversation about its past.