Want an example of white privilege? White privilege is wearing an expensive piece of racist jewelry to a dinner attended by your black soon-to-be relative and, when called out on it, “apologizing” by saying you have worn it many times before and no one has ever said anything,
Princess Michael of Kent came under fire Friday when news broke that she wore a blackamoor brooch to a Christmas lunch Wednesday at Buckingham Palace that was also attended by Meghan Markle. The Daily Mail reports that the princess apologized through her spokesperson, saying that she was “very sorry and distressed” for having worn the brooch, which was a gift she’s worn many times before without controversy.
Oh. You mean you’ve worn it many times and no white people pulled you to the side and said, “Hey, girl. That might be offensive to the black people we don’t really care about”?
A Kensington Palace source said the brooch was not meant to insult Markle, who is engaged to marry Prince Harry, and that Princess Michael will not wear it again.
Blackamoor jewelry usually depicts a man or woman of African descent. The facial features can sometimes be large and exaggerated. Some believe the jewelry pieces ward against evil.
This is not the first time Princess Michael has been involved in an incident of racism.
In 2004 she was accused of telling a group of black diners in New York to “go back to the colonies” because she was offended by the level of noise coming from their table.
Later, in a television interview discussing the New York incident, she referred to African people as “adorable” and said, “I even pretended years ago to be an African, a half-caste African, but because of my light eyes I did not get away with it, but I dyed my hair black. I traveled on African buses. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted experiences from Cape Town to right up in northern Mozambique. I had this adventure with these absolutely adorable, special people, and to call me racist: It’s a knife through the heart because I really love these people.”
“These people.”
I’m going to guess she knew exactly what she was doing when she put on that brooch.