In the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, the Duke of Sussex bemoans the racist element of the abuse suffered by Meghan on social media and in the UK press. He also addresses racism in wider British society and behind palace walls. “In this family,” he says, “you are sometimes part of the problem rather than part of the solution.”
As a Black American living in London, I am often struck by the different ways in which Britain and America grapple with the question of race. In the US, despite living alongside enslaved people and their underserved descendants for four centuries, after the death of George Floyd in 2020 many white people were, or at least seemed, astounded to learn that structural racism still existed.
In the UK, while the national conversation about the impact of racial inequality is gradually gaining some momentum, one topic remains almost universally taboo: the British monarchy’s close historical ties to the slave trade and colonialisation. Modern royals still hold enormous wealth, much of which was first acquired through the profits of slavery. This dark legacy continues to haunt the institution, constantly lurking in the background, threatening to overshadow the good causes members of the family seek to support.
I am left wondering, though, when the royal family will finally be ready to put aside the toxicity that surrounds this issue and explore new ways of thinking about race. If only they would do that, they could become unlikely role models for how to go about moving this conversation forward. They might even be moved to admit that the very concept of race was constructed by the early colonialists, oppressors who were often acting at the bidding of the crown.
When the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge went on a tour of the Caribbean earlier this year, Prince William himself acknowledged that “the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history”. Yet even now, he and other royals only ever come within touching distance of apologising for the dreadful harms caused by colonialism on their ancestors’ watch. In carefully scripted speeches, they always refrain from accepting true accountability of the kind that might lend dangerous weight to the growing calls for them to make amends. Of course, it would be unfair to hold individual royal family members personally responsible for crimes committed long before they were born. Nevertheless, when you are still enjoying the proceeds of those crimes without taking steps to right past wrongs, you are, indeed, part of the problem.
But it would be a mistake for the new monarch, King Charles III, and his subjects to see it as inevitable that the crown will always be associated with a racist past. These are shackles that can be shaken off, if only the royals are courageous enough to commit to doing so through honest, solution-focused dialogue.
And who better to lead the way than the king’s two sons, both of whom have spoken publicly of their commitment to ridding society of racism? Along with Meghan, Harry says he is fighting racial injustice; indeed, the couple recently won an award for doing so in New York. On 22 June this year, I attended a moving ceremony at Waterloo station in London at which William unveiled the new national Windrush monument, which honours the arrival of African-Caribbean migrants who played a vital role in the UK’s post-second world war recovery. In his speech, the prince deplored the racism many of those migrants experienced in their new home, adding that “discrimination remains an all-too-familiar experience for Black men and women in Britain in 2022”.
William and Harry each have a unique platform. If they could unite to model the creation of brave spaces for difficult, empathic conversations about race, first within their own family and then with people from every corner of society, of every ethnicity and every part of the world, they could show others how to go beyond division to find hope.
I pray such a dialogue would also lead the monarchy to finally issue a formal apology for institutional racism, and to start seriously exploring how it can pay reparations to the descendants of the victims of slavery and exploitation at home and in the former British colonies. Many good ideas already exist about how to do this effectively – for example, by giving those descendants long-term access to wealth – and are worthy of thorough consideration in tandem with victims’ representatives. Opening a transparent, deliberative consultation process on reparations would doubtless also produce new and innovative propositions.
By publicly embracing such work, I believe the crown can free itself from the burden of its racist past and show other individuals, institutions and states how to do the same. Together, William and Harry could mount and lead a powerful joint campaign for racial justice that would help transform the future for their children and grandchildren, as well as ours. In doing so, they could prove that their family is no longer part of the problem, but an important part of the solution. They could, if they are lucky, even succeed in healing the rift between them.
Keith Magee is a writer and academic and chair of the Guardian Foundation. He is the author of Prophetic Justice: Race, Religion and Politics
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