Enough is enough. Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle has been on the receiving end of relentless hate since she joined and left the royal family. Now attempting to live a quiet life in LA with her husband, Prince Harry, she still cannot get a break from the media.
I’ll be the first to admit I am a bit biased towards supporting Meghan Markle. She is my Kappa sister after all. But there is a fine line between criticism and bullying and after reading years of not-so-nice articles about her, I concluded that what is happening now resembles harassment.
Everyone loves to talk about how horrible Meghan is because she left the royal family. They say things like she should have known what she was getting herself into, how the media is a part of being in the family and how she needed to just ride out the backlash. When it was first announced that Meghan and Harry were engaged, the media quickly became consumed with the fact that she was black and published countless racist pieces about her. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that anyone who is experiencing racist comments should just have to “ride it out”. But for a while, that is what she did. The royal family would not let her comment about it, nor did they really make an effort to stop those statements from being printed. The media spun a story of Markle being a bad person by leaving the royal family, but after reading the horrible things being said about her race and considering the fact that her new family made no effort to defend her, I think it’s a miracle she managed to stay as long as she did.
Months after Megxit, the term the tabloids coined after Prince Harry and Meghan announced their departure as royals, the tabloids have once again found a new way to bully Markle. A few weeks ago, The New York Times published an op-ed written by Markle in which she opened up about having a miscarriage. Speaking out about this typically taboo subject, Markle highlighted the commonality of this type of loss, and how difficult and painful it can really be. While some expressed support for the Duchess and praised her for her openness, others took this moment to once again criticize her.
The critique that was widely circulating on Twitter, was the fact that Meghan is currently suing multiple British tabloids for privacy issues yet is sharing details of her miscarriage. For background, Associated Newspapers published private letters last year between Markle and her father without her knowledge and Markle is now suing. To this criticism, I say there is a HUGE difference between deciding to openly share deep and intimate parts of your personal life and having them being exposed without your consent. Markle’s willingness to share about her loss this year, in a year where many have lost loved ones due to the pandemic, has absolutely nothing to do with a tabloid that took it upon themselves to publish her private letter a year ago.
I am sick and tired of women, particularly women of color, being overly scrutinized by the media. Consistently, they are made out to be the villains and become the targets of online hate. One Google search of Meghan Markle and you will quickly find a dozen articles about how she broke up the royal family and virtually zero about her work as a humanitarian. Unless you did a deep dive, you would have no idea about her work for the United Nations Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women or her work with World Vision. The blatant misogyny and racism that allows for this environment within the media, praising the degradation of women and specifically women of color, has to stop. Because if you really take a step back and look at the Meghan Markle situation, from her joining the royals to her exit, all she did was stand up for herself, which we should celebrate and encourage, not hate on her for.
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