Meghan Markle Was Treated As A Black Woman When She Started Dating Prince Harry
Meghan Markle’s second episode of her podcast Archetypes released today (August 30), this time welcoming singer Mariah Carey as her guest. The Duchess of Sussex, 41, chatted with the acclaimed singer for a conversation titled “The Duality of Diva,” where they spoke about the modern interpretation’s negative connotations of the word “diva.” They also discussed issues around being biracial.
Mariah, 53, touched on how she moved over a dozen times during her youth and grew up without much, struggling to fit in with each new start. “I didn’t fit in. I didn’t fit in. You know, it would be more of the Black area of town or then you could be where my mom chose to live, were the more, the white neighborhoods. And I didn’t fit in anywhere at all,” Carey said.
Markle told Carey that she was more than just a singer to her, saying, “You were so formative for me. Representation matters so much. But when you are a woman and you don’t see a woman who looks like you somewhere in a position of power or influence, or even just on the screen — because we know how influential media is — you came onto the scene, I was like ‘Oh, my gosh. Someone kind of looks like me. ‘”
Speaking of another trailblazing woman in Hollywood, Meghan continued, “I had read this article about Halle Berry, and they were asking her how she felt being treated as a mixed-race woman in the world. And her response was her saying, ‘Well, your experience through the world is how people view you.’ So she said because she was darker in color, she was being treated as a Black woman, not as a mixed woman. And I think for us, it’s very different because we’re light-skinned. You’re not treated as a Black woman, you’re not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.
Markle said of her romantic relationship with Harry, “I mean, if there’s any time in my life that it’s been more focused on my race, it’s only once I started dating my husband. Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted.”
In reply, the “Always Be My Baby” singer said that people always want to put people in a box, feeling forced to choose between identifying as Black or white was an “interesting thing.” She added, “As mixed women, because I always thought it should be okay to say I’m mixed. Like, it should be okay to say that. But people want you to choose.”
As we previously reported, the debut episode of Archetypes featuring guest Serena Williams discussed the double standard society sets for women who chase their dreams.
