Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have urged members of the Commonwealth to confront its “uncomfortable’’ history, including the legacy of the slave trade, warning however that such acknowledgment of the past was not going to be easy.
Harry, 35, and Markle, 38, recently joined a video call with young Black leaders from across the British commonwealth including the Bahamas, U.K. and Australia for a conversation about justice, fairness and equal rights.
According to NBC News, it was partly in response to the growing Black Lives Matter movement, which began in the U.S. and is now spreading across the world.
“When you look across the Commonwealth, there is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy, and in some cases, it’s not going to be comfortable. But it needs to be done, because guess what: Everybody benefits.” The couple didn’t stop there.
Acknowledging his own bias— “we can’t deny or ignore the fact that all of us have been educated to see the world differently”—Harry then went on to call out systemic racism: “It’s there and it stays there because someone, somewhere is benefiting from it,” he said.
Meghan added her own thoughts: “It’s not just in the big moments, it’s in the quiet moments where racism and unconscious bias lies and thrives,” she said. “It makes it confusing for a lot of people to understand the role that they play in that, both passively and actively.”
This is the latest in a series of public statements Harry and Meghan have made as they shift the focus of their royal work towards racial equality and social justice, Daily Mail reported. Harry apologized publicly last week for endemic institutionalized racism, saying he is sorry the world isn’t in the place where young people deserve it to be. They have spoken out multiple times on the topic of racism since George Floyd died in police custody on May 25, triggering global protests.
There’s a growing call for the U.K. to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade. One of the world’s largest insurance firms, Lloyd’s of London has agreed to pay reparations for slavery after its role in the slave trade was highlighted in an academic database. The couple, who left the Royal family to set up their own independent lives in Los Angeles earlier this year, also urged the Black Lives Matter movement “to continue this momentum for as long as it takes’’.
