{"id":56454,"date":"2018-05-21T14:33:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T14:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56454"},"modified":"2018-05-21T14:33:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T14:33:58","slug":"meghan-markle-and-the-bicultural-blackness-of-the-royal-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56454","title":{"rendered":"Meghan Markle and the Bicultural Blackness of the Royal Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meghan Markle and the Bicultural Blackness of the Royal Wedding<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2018-05-20<\/p>\n

Salamishah Tillet<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies
\nUniversity of Pennsylvania<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nPrince Harry<\/a> and Meghan Markle<\/a> during their wedding ceremony in St George’s Chapel<\/a> at Windsor Castle<\/a> on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England<\/a>.
\nPool photo by WPA<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u201cWho are your people?\u201d is the question that repeatedly came to me as I watched Doria Ragland<\/a>, Meghan Markle\u2019s<\/a> mother, sitting a few feet away from her daughter at Saturday\u2019s royal wedding<\/a>. A common expression among southern African-Americans when greeting a stranger, it is never simply a matter of bloodline or individual biography. Rather, responses like \u201cI\u2019m the daughter of so and so\u201d or \u201cMy family comes from here by way of there\u201d serves the greater purpose of attesting to one\u2019s place in history and potential bonds of kinship.<\/p>\n

Despite Ms. Ragland\u2019s being the sole member of Ms. Markle\u2019s family at the wedding, we still know so little about her. In contrast to the media obsession with Ms. Markle\u2019s father<\/a> and his children from his first marriage, Ms. Ragland is a bit of a mystery who rarely gives interviews. As a result of her silence, we are left to deduce meaning from her physical image. As she sat across from the British monarchy in her pale green Oscar de la Renta<\/a> dress and coat, it was the symbolism of her long dreadlocks<\/a>, quietly tucked underneath her hat, that spoke volumes as it reminded us that black women\u2019s natural hair is regal too.<\/p>\n

Among the group of black women with whom I watched the ceremony early Saturday morning in New Jersey<\/a>, she was a source of pride. Yet out of a sense of sisterly protection, we were also worried about her as she sat there alone, without siblings or friends. The wedding itself helped alleviate our fears, for even if none were not physically present at St. George\u2019s Chapel<\/a>, the ceremony was filled with gestures, big and small, that explicitly celebrated her \u201cpeople\u201d and the various black worlds in which she raised Ms. Markle.<\/p>\n

But it was \u201cwhat are you?\u201d \u2014 a substantially more alienating question than \u201cwho are your people?\u201d \u2014 that Meghan Markle recalls hearing almost every day of her life. In a 2015 essay for Elle<\/em> magazine<\/a>, she wrote, \u201cI\u2019m an actress, a writer, the Editor-in-Chief of my lifestyle brand The Tig<\/em><\/a>, a pretty good cook and a firm believer in handwritten notes. A mouthful, yes, but one that I feel paints a pretty solid picture of who I am.\u201d But such an answer is insufficient. Ms. Markle went on, \u201cBut here\u2019s what happens: they smile and nod politely, maybe even chuckle, before getting to their point, \u2018Right, but what are you? Where are your parents from?\u2019 I knew it was coming, I always do.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWho are your people?\u201d is the question that repeatedly came to me as I watched Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle\u2019s mother, sitting a few feet away from her daughter at Saturday\u2019s royal wedding. A common expression among southern African-Americans when greeting a stranger, it is never simply a matter of bloodline or individual biography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,8,10,20],"tags":[28689,28691,20717,2640,28692,28690,2327],"class_list":["post-56454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-usa","tag-doria-ragland","tag-henry-prince-of-wales","tag-meghan-markle","tag-new-york-times","tag-prince-harry-duke-of-sussex","tag-salamishah-tillet","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56455,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56454\/revisions\/56455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}