There is a lot of kindly-meant liberal hypocrisy about colour. People who are too-nice-to-live will say, "Oh I never even notice skin colour," and they are serious FFS! I tend to reply, "I hope you are never the only witness at a major crime incident, the police are going to be dead impressed with your description of the perpetrator." Human beans are information processors. We take in the scene and interpret it in terms of our experience, and upbringing and a whole range of other crap. If we see Cyrano de Bergerac we immediately know he's got a huge hooter, if it's Boris we've got the hair and the Oxo-cube figure, if it's Usain Bolt, the good looks and 6'8", slim athletic and black combine .............. you wouldn't mistake Usain Bolt for Peter Crouch would you? Whatever rubbish you program into it, your brain is going to try to interpret the world. I'm white, it's fine, I'm not repulsive, but given the choice I might have gone for black or that nice coffee-colour apartheid South Africa used to call Cape-coloured. Shocked silence! People of all colours can be beautiful, just as sometimes they might come out with a face like a melted candle and be a genius, or never get a joke. This is humanity.
I spent the happiest 28 years of my life till the end of 2019 with a partner who was a theatre director. He was older than me. I'm gay of course. He didn't understand football at all, I love it. So what? I learnt a lot about acting. Meghan, well darling don't hold your breath till you turn into Judi Dench will you? Second-rate script, third-rate performance. Oprah? None of it was The Colour Purple now was it despite your Oscar? Don't confuse it with Alice Walker or Toni Morrison. The Royal Family didn't ask what life was like down in the Projects now did they? And privileged little Meg don't know anyhow.
How was Harry helping out while Meg was having her suicidal thoughts? Much as I shouldn't cast doubt on mental health issues, they have become a very easy peg on which to hang other lesser issues ....... because humans get upset and yes they handle it inside their heads ......... but if everyone dramatises internal struggle in such a way, it devalues the experience of those who are really on the edge. And that's the problem we get two hours on the essentially minute grievances of a woman who seems to have everything and still wants more, and we can confuse it with the real, lived experience of exploited people, minorities fighting oppression, those with no access to health care .......... Oh I could go on ranting. Just get on with your life in the sun and don't cloak your good fortune in fake bitterness.
Oh I ought to say for Jim - Meghan looks lovely but although I'd have guessed her to be mixed race I could well have struggled with the races concerned. So what? Her child had every chance of being much darker than her. That genuinely does concern parents and potential parents and their families. I know a girl whose dad was Sri Lankan and her mum was white. She came into the world dark-haired, but unless you knew her dad you would never have guessed her heredity. She was who she was and happy. It was only when she married a white man she began to wonder herself what colour her child would be and how many acquaintances might react to the baby if it favoured her dad. She wondered if she would be constantly explaining a background she had never hidden and of which she was proud, and how her husband would feel when people looked first at him, then the baby. Had Meghan favoured her mum rather than her dad no one would have asked the question. It was an observation about the nature of the world. Had the observation progressed to suggesting to Harry he couldn't have a black baby, Harry should have punched him in the face and said, "Why not shit face? Collect your teeth on the way out." He's well capable! (And by the way when I ran a football team with several players from Italian families, we had two players who you might have mistaken for Meghan's brothers, colour, cheekbones and all.) The insult about colour is not observing it or describing it, it is treating people differently because of it. Meghan is beautiful wherever you place her on your internal Dulux colour chart and she's clever. How she is using those assets and whether she's addressing serious issues or using them for her own ends remain open questions.
I spent the happiest 28 years of my life till the end of 2019 with a partner who was a theatre director. He was older than me. I'm gay of course. He didn't understand football at all, I love it. So what? I learnt a lot about acting. Meghan, well darling don't hold your breath till you turn into Judi Dench will you? Second-rate script, third-rate performance. Oprah? None of it was The Colour Purple now was it despite your Oscar? Don't confuse it with Alice Walker or Toni Morrison. The Royal Family didn't ask what life was like down in the Projects now did they? And privileged little Meg don't know anyhow.
How was Harry helping out while Meg was having her suicidal thoughts? Much as I shouldn't cast doubt on mental health issues, they have become a very easy peg on which to hang other lesser issues ....... because humans get upset and yes they handle it inside their heads ......... but if everyone dramatises internal struggle in such a way, it devalues the experience of those who are really on the edge. And that's the problem we get two hours on the essentially minute grievances of a woman who seems to have everything and still wants more, and we can confuse it with the real, lived experience of exploited people, minorities fighting oppression, those with no access to health care .......... Oh I could go on ranting. Just get on with your life in the sun and don't cloak your good fortune in fake bitterness.
Oh I ought to say for Jim - Meghan looks lovely but although I'd have guessed her to be mixed race I could well have struggled with the races concerned. So what? Her child had every chance of being much darker than her. That genuinely does concern parents and potential parents and their families. I know a girl whose dad was Sri Lankan and her mum was white. She came into the world dark-haired, but unless you knew her dad you would never have guessed her heredity. She was who she was and happy. It was only when she married a white man she began to wonder herself what colour her child would be and how many acquaintances might react to the baby if it favoured her dad. She wondered if she would be constantly explaining a background she had never hidden and of which she was proud, and how her husband would feel when people looked first at him, then the baby. Had Meghan favoured her mum rather than her dad no one would have asked the question. It was an observation about the nature of the world. Had the observation progressed to suggesting to Harry he couldn't have a black baby, Harry should have punched him in the face and said, "Why not shit face? Collect your teeth on the way out." He's well capable! (And by the way when I ran a football team with several players from Italian families, we had two players who you might have mistaken for Meghan's brothers, colour, cheekbones and all.) The insult about colour is not observing it or describing it, it is treating people differently because of it. Meghan is beautiful wherever you place her on your internal Dulux colour chart and she's clever. How she is using those assets and whether she's addressing serious issues or using them for her own ends remain open questions.