IS MEGHAN MARKLE ANYTHING TO WRITE BLACK HOME ABOUT?

Meghan Markle, an actress on the television show SUITS, got engaged to Prince Harry of England this week. There's been a lot of discussion of whether or not Black Americans have anything to celebrate. 

The black discussions being had about Markle seem remarkably like the discussions had about Tiger Woods at the beginning of his career. 

It went like this:

• He's a golf success story
• Blacks don't have a superstar golfer
• We want him
• Therefore, he's black

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. 

Tiger Woods was crystal clear when he spoke to Oprah on national television and said it makes him uncomfortable when people call him "African American" 

And he did not mean he preferred "Black American," "Black" or...or...or... He was saying he prefers -- in so many words-- to be identified with the group called "mixed race" or "bi-racial."    

And it was not surprising when he found ways to say he is racially "colorblind" which made him a hero to white folks everywhere...who were still on the "I don't see race" crap as a way of declaring racism would just go away if you just stop talking about it.  

Yet, it was downright predictable that he'd marry a blond white woman (despite his being able to see skin color) 

I would have laughed my butt clean off when Tiger was caught cheating on his white wife with nearly two dozen cheesy-looking white women -- while being unable to see color-- but I was pretty sure every-white-body who loved him said to themselves, "Damn, I guess he's black after all."

 Woods' calling himself cablinasian was a joke. But the message connected to the joke was: I am mixed race.

And I was fine with that --eventually. (I'd already been cheering for him as  black golfer when I found out he wasn't black) 

So here we are again. 

• Markle is a successful actress 
• She's marrying a prince
• We want her
• Therefore she's black

Markle has very clearly identified herself as "mixed race" and her mother as different/"black" when giving interviews. 

Furthermore those who are confused because they either believe in the one-drop rule or think it's possible to NOT respect somebody else's choices in the name of defending their blackness should read what Barack Obama and Halle Berry have said about being black and their decision to "identify" as "black" because this ain't that.

My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. 'Because that's how you look, Meghan,' she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn't bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn't tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.

When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened. He said the words that have always stayed with me: 'If that happens again, you draw your own box.' 

This ain't that.

LET US REVIEW

• President Obama is black because he said he is 
• Halle is black because she said she is.
• Meghan Markle and Tiger Woods are not black because they said they aren't OR they said they are all things mixed together -- as in "I am mixed-race"
• I got 20 mulattos in my family tree and I AM BLACK

Markle is a mixed raced or bi-racial woman. That's fine. 

She's not black. That's fine.  

Race is a social construct and Markle knows how she has been socially constructed. And she has not been socially constructed as "black" but "mixed race." That's fine.  

I don't question any of her choices.

And after reading the article below, I once again feel truly sorry for light-skinned little girls who have had to try so hard to figure out where they fit in.

But making an end around to deny her light privilege is NOT fine.

"This is precisely why Suits stole my heart. It's the Goldilocks of my acting career – where finally I was just right. The series was initially conceived as a dramedy about a NY law firm flanked by two partners, one of whom navigates this glitzy world with his fraudulent degree.  

Enter Rachel Zane, one of the female leads and the dream girl – beautiful and confident with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law. 'Dream girl' in Hollywood terms had always been that quintessential blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty – that was the face that launched a thousand ships, not the mixed one. But the show's producers weren't looking for someone mixed, nor someone white or black for that matter. They were simply looking for Rachel. In making a choice like that, the Suits producers helped shift the way pop culture defines beauty.

http://www.elleuk.com/life-and-culture/news/a26855/more-than-an-other/ 

The shift she's talking about did not take place when she was hired on SUITS or a few years before SUITS. The shift she's talking about where Hollywood hires almost-white looking actresses instead of the usual blond, blue-eyed white girl took place decades ago. 

She's pretending her getting that role was more than just her personal gain, that her getting that role on SUITS broke a glass ceiling for women of color when...

Halle Berry, 
Vanessa Williams 
Rosario Dawson 
Thandie Newton
Gina Torres 
Zoe Saldana 
Gugu Mbatha Raw
Paula Patton 

....and dozens of other light-skinned actress have ALL already been there and done that. 
Literally dozens of light-skinned and/or mixed race actresses --some of whom DO identify as "black" -- have gotten roles that didn't necessarily specifically call for woman of color.

Her ignoring of all the light skinned women that came before her winds up being a  method of firmly denying her light privilege.

This pretense that other light-skinned, mixed race actresses weren't cast in exactly the same way she was cast in SUITS allows her to deny that she is number 30 or 40, at the end of a list of light-skinned, mixed-looking female actress that got roles because they were pale.

That is, she may have had a hard time getting roles compared to Becky, exactly as she's stated. But her paleness made her 1000 times more likely to get the role of RACHAL ZANE in SUITS over darker-skinned women. 

I'm not going to celebrate anyone who refuses to discuss -- at length-- their light privilege.

And when I say "at length" I mean there needs to be the same number of paragraphs per article to discuss her privilege as there were to discuss the pain of not fitting in.

Furthermore, there needs to be follow up that discusses how a light-skinned person is going to use her light privilege to benefit those who are darker, those who's social construct is "Black" or "Black American" or darker mixed-race people.

But I don't see that happening. I've read one statement attributed to her that seems to be a Tiger-Woodsy "I'm colorblind" statement, which most sociologists have identified as a form of [white] racism.

Besides, the pain of not fitting in should NOT be on the forefront of a grown ass woman's mind, not even as a mixed-race, half-black woman in a white supremacy rife world. 

I hope I'm wrong about what I see so far. But I don't think I am. 

Public persons who identify as black or mixed race who want to make sure other people of color feel represented have a way of communicating that. President Obama has done it. Halle Berry has done it. A number of mixed race actresses have done it.  Not only has Markle failed to communicate anything of the sort, she is marrying somebody who had to be told his wearing a Hitler costume for Halloween is an ethnoracist maneuver. 

I'd like to hope anybody could learn and become better over 12 years (when that Nazi costume incident took place) But his ability to do this at all after the age of 5 speaks to how he was or wasn't raised. I see this Nazi costume as socially constructed white supremacy at it's whitest. 

...which can't be a surprise to anyone. Britain has made a career of trampling anybody not-white for centuries.

Apology or no apology for the Nazi costume, no matter how long ago this happened, this makes him a frightening prospect as a husband for a "woke" woman of color, which she probably isn't.

In fact, I'm just hoping she's not a white supremacy enabler at this point.

I hope the both of them turn out to be more racially conscious than they appear so far because the content of the tweet actually worries me.

I actually worry about light privileged joining the white privileged to become a new oppressor group. The level of denial is the same. And white racists are going to give  up trying to go it alone eventually as they become outnumbered.

Large numbers of light-privilege deny-ers will be seen as natural allies to white supremacists...eventually. (It's already begun).  

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