Sir Trevor Phillips: Conversations about a baby’s skin color happen everywhere
Buckingham Palace has blatantly called on their political allies to publicly come to the defense of King Charles and his alleged racism. It’s crazy that we’re here – Omid Scobie’s Endgame came out last week, and only the Dutch edition carried the “names” of the two people who allegedly had “concerns” about how dark the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s children would be. The names were written by Meghan in a letter to then-Prince Charles in 2021. According to the Dutch mistranslation, the names recorded by Meghan were: Charles and Kate (the current Princess of Wales). Instead of merely shrugging the whole thing off as a publishing/translation snafu, the palace and their press allies have clearly telegraphed that there is some truth to the “mistranslation,” or that those were the names Meghan wrote in her letters to Charles. As Omid Scobie said – and Piers Morgan seemingly half-admitted too – these names have been widely known in British media circles for some time.
Well, as I said, Charles has now called on whatever political ally he can find. There have been several political figures and civil servants coming forward with full-throated character statements about how Charles is the most woke ally ever and he would never say or do anything racist. Not only that, but the palace is waging an adjacent campaign to claim that it’s not even bad or racist to talk about babies’ skin color. Again, as Meghan and Harry have both said, these were not “conversations about what the baby would look like,” there were CONCERNS about how dark the child would be. These palace campaigns are especially disgusting when they’re using any and all Black Britons they can find to speak the palace’s talking points. Speaking of:
King Charles III’s representative in the capital has defended the royals against ‘nonsense’ claims that discussing Archie’s skin colour is racist, declaring: ‘In my family discussing the features of an unborn relative is not just harmless, it is part of the joy of anticipation’. Sir Kenneth Olisa, the first black Lord-Lieutenant of London in the role’s 500-year-old history, has accused critics of failing to keep an ‘open mind’ about what is usually a positive conversation between members of a ‘loving family’.
His comments came after equalities campaigner Sir Trevor Phillips was equally dismissive, declaring: ‘There is no family of colour anywhere in the world where that conversation doesn’t take place’.
Sir Kenneth Olisa told MailOnline: ‘The alleged exchange was private and so none of the rest of us can possibly have a view. However, in my family and in those of my friends and acquaintances, discussing the features of an unborn relative is not just harmless, it is part of the joy of anticipation’.
Sir Kenneth, who was named Britain’s most influential black person in 2016, has repeatedly said he has ‘never once encountered the slightest hint of racism’ in his many years of working with the royals. He believes that if the conversation did take place, many people have been too quick to condemn it as a ‘vulgar, racist question’ – rather a benign, innocent conversation amongst loved ones.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline after Omid Scobie’s book raised the issue again, Sir Kenneth said: ‘I commented on this nonsense back in 2021 when it first emerged in the Oprah interview. The intervening years haven’t given me any reason to revise my opinion. Quite the opposite. It is a fact that the only way to understand someone’s comment is to know the context and their intention. Therefore, only those who are privy to a conversation can decide how to react’.
As Lord-Lieutenant of London since 2015, Sir Kenneth has accompanied many members of the Royal Family on engagements in London, including Queen Elizabeth II, who appointed him. He represented the Queen in the capital for seven years and is continuing in his role under King Charles III. He has also supported the Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince Harry and his wife the Duchess of Sussex, when she carried out official duties.
[From Daily Mail]
All of these people swearing up and down that they’ve never witnessed Charles doing or saying anything racist has the feel of all of those character witnesses who come out of the woodwork whenever a high-profile man is accused of abuse. “I never saw him abuse anyone” is all well and good, but it doesn’t actually negate the accusation. “The king was never racist around me” is even less believable. The sleight of hand around conversations/concerns about the baby’s skin color is even less slick – again, Harry and Meghan both said that there were “concerns.” Not super-innocent conversations about “how dark do you think the baby will be” (although that’s loaded enough for these colonizers) but actual CONCERNS about the baby’s skin color and what that would “mean.” Prince Archie wasn’t even given royal protection, the palace said nothing as the baby was compared to a monkey and I still find the “smoke in South Africa” story fishy as hell. These were not innocent conversations.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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