Don Lemon said Meghan
Markle was speaking “from a place of privilege” when she said
her relationship with Harry led to more focus on her race than before
in her most recent Spotify podcast with Mariah Carey.
The American former actress
was the first mixed-race person to marry a senior British royal in centuries
when she wed Harry in 2018.
The Duchess, who quit as a
senior working royal two years ago, sparked a royal crisis with her Oprah interview
in 2021 when she accused an unnamed member of the royal family of making a
racist comment about her son Archie’s skin tone before he was born.
“She was a mixed woman.
People didn’t really know how to react to her. They didn’t know if she was
black or white, but she didn’t get the full Black treatment because people
weren’t sure that she was, you know, black.
“I think most
African-Americans probably looked at her and said, ‘oh, I know that’s a black
woman,’ but I think the larger culture may not have realized that.
“But […] she is coming
from is a place of privilege where she did not have to deal with racism until
she married a white man. And she’s got all this criticism and all this
attention.
“And suddenly she
understood or understands what it’s like to be part of a group of people,
especially women in this country or in Europe, who are discriminated against.
So I think it was it was eye-opening for her. It’s certainly real.”
