It can be startling to realize that the people and places which we once deemed as safe, comfortable, full of goodness and well-meaning, even going so far as to describe them as ‘perfect’ to others, are actually a facade; a pretty veneer with a hollow inside.
This evening I sat and watched the Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan and was brought to tears by the things that I heard. As a little girl, I dreamt of one day becoming a princess. A serendipitous encounter with a prince resulting in me being swept away from my ordinary existence and taken into one of singing birds and rapturous beauty. Turns out that’s not quite the way it works…similar, but not quite… Anyway, the point is I have always loved the Royals. My husband, Phillip, jokes that there are two things which will get me riled up 1) someone talking badly about my husband or son and 2) someone talking negatively about the Queen. I mean, he’s not so wrong. I love the country I am from and I have a particular fondness for our Queenie.
But there is something that gets my goat even more than those things do: injustice, and in this case - racism.
It is sickening, humbling, scary and confronting when you begin to see how racism has been woven into the very fabric of the institutions, belief systems, relationships, structures and ways of thinking that make up your world. The very insidiousness of it can cause some people to refuse to believe the truth, yet for others who are trapped under the power play, they are screaming for someone to tear it all down.
For me, most recently, it is almost triggering an identity crises. Maybe it is for you too?
It’s like that moment when you realize that you’ve been lied to, and not just a little white lie that has no consequence, but a massive deception that has impacted every decision you’ve made from its inception. Who you’ve chosen to listen to and allowed into your inner circle, votes that you’ve cast, petitions you’ve signed, jobs you’ve taken and stories you’ve passed on to your kids were all decided by that lie of inferiority, that distortion of history, the whisper of doubt, the questioning of another’s true worth. And what’s more, you agreed with it.
I write this in the final few minutes of International Women’s Day, my mind swirling with so many stories of courage, bravery, strength and passion belonging to women I know and love dearly. Each one inspires me and brings me to tears in equal measure. I think too of Meghan, whose honesty and bravery is now being laid bare before the whole world. An invitation offered up for compassion and understanding, and also a bold confrontation of one of the world’s oldest institutions, which even now continues to perpetuate a system of caste and oppression, including the very ones it worships.
So, in the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, “Where do we go from here?”
“In the days ahead we must not consider it unpatriotic to raise certain basic questions about our national character.”
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
I think we need to continue to wrestle with the hard questions, to allow our ignorance to be called out, to do the work and learn our real and full history, to be ok with not being perfect and instead embrace the beauty, ugliness and vulnerability of our humanity. If you find yourself, like I have done, having the foundations of your cultural identity being shaken, lean into that, don’t ignore it. Ignorance is not bliss. It is the permission given for injustice and oppression to continue. There is no superior race. The Romans were wrong. The British Empire was wrong. Hitler was wrong. White Supremacy is wrong. We need to dismantle the lies and break agreement with them. We need to stop, in order for anything new to begin.
Oprah’s interview may not be enough to completely overhaul the institution of the Royal family, but it is certainly causing ripples, and if given enough encouragement by the wind, could cause a tsunami of change.
