Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are perfect brand ambassadors for Black Lives Matter, which poses as a radical threat to the status quo, but, in reality, is one of the most elite-backed movements ever.
We recover from coronavirus to emerge blinking into the midst of protests, riots and statues tumbling. Police kneel before activists, JK Rowling has been cancelled, Gone With The Wind has been removed from HBO Max, comedy favourites have been pulled from Netflix. The world is where we left it before lockdown, but nothing is quite the same.
With such rapid social change, it’s a relief when some things come as no surprise. News that the LA-based formerly royal duo, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, are “shifting their focus” and will be putting their energy into supporting the Black Lives Matter movement is so predictable it’s positively reassuring.
According to the US publication Entertainment Tonight, Meghan is “passionate” about supporting Black Lives Matter. Its royal expert opines: “the...movement matters to Meghan and it matters to Harry. And I understand that this is going to be an area where we’re going to see the couple doing a lot more work and taking a lot more interest.”
Of course they are! The only surprise is that anyone thought a slipped-out announcement was needed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been leading us up to this point with all the subtlety of a bulldozer in front of a Confederate statue. From the first days of their relationship, they have highlighted every perceived slight and countered every criticism with accusations of racism.
The couple’s decision to quit as full-time royals in search of greater privacy and financial independence (yes, seriously!) was framed as a response to racist Brits with their penchant for racist tabloid newspapers. Yet, aside from those much-publicised references to Meghan’s ‘exotic DNA’ and the ‘gang-scarred’ home of her mother (both articles are actually highly complimentary), evidence of this racism is hard to come by. There have certainly been criticisms, but these came after we fell in love with Meghan and tuned in in our millions to watch her wedding to Harry.
Despite the use of private jets, the royal palaces and the clothes that cost more than most people earn in a year, the couple take every opportunity to tell the rest of us how to live. We’ve had Meghan telling us to be more feminist, Harry telling us to be more sustainable, them both telling us to be less racist – and on and on it goes. But so much as question the motives of the royal couple, raise the slightest suggestion that their immense privilege does not give them the right to lecture us, and the charge comes back: racist!
All of this makes the Prince and Princess of Woke perfect brand ambassadors for Black Lives Matter. The movement might pose as a radical threat to the status quo, but it is surely one of the most elite-backed protest movements ever. From Hollywood stars to multinational corporations, from ancient universities and grand public schools to the Mayor of London and government ministers, everyone now bends the knee to Black Lives Matter.
Within minutes of a statue being mooted as ‘problematic’, diggers are sent out. A street or building is renamed before activists have finished entering its details into Google. Activists may push, but they’ll find the door is being held wide open by those pesky establishment figures they’ve been railing against.
In Bristol, police officers stood by as activists tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston. The city’s senior police officer said Bristol should be ‘proud’ of the way it acted.
Also on rt.com Guilt and self-loathing pervades the ‘we must do better’ responses of businesses and institutions over #BLM – it’s truly patheticBBC reporters have fallen over themselves to remark on the peaceful nature of the protesters and the justness of their cause. We can only imagine how different all of this might have been if it were a pro-Brexit rally and an anti-lockdown demonstration that had taken place.
Black Lives Matter has been taken up with alacrity by a new, woke, identity-obsessed, virtue-signalling elite – people just like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Members of this new elite are now exploiting the brutal murder of George Floyd to clear out the remnants of the old world order and shore up their own moral authority. Fabricated victimhood protects them from criticism. Older establishment figures bow down, fearful of stepping out of line, uttering the wrong words and finding themselves cancelled.
Harry and Meghan are the embodiment of this new elite. They have wealth and influence most people can barely imagine, yet use every platform to point to their own struggles. They lead their lives on the world stage, surrounded by the best security detail money can buy, yet think nothing of telling the rest of us how to live.
It’s perfectly fitting that the once-royal couple should focus their energy on Black Lives Matter. It’s the least radical, most elite protest movement in existence. Harry and Meghan’s involvement shows that, far from challenging the establishment, Black Lives Matter is the establishment.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.