Ever since Meghan Markle started dating Prince Harry, she became a lightning rod for racist abuse. Harry had to release an official statement condemning the scrutiny she had faced only a few months into their relationship, speaking out against “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”
But Markle had already witnessed racism in her childhood, growing up with a Black mother and witnessing the Rodney King protests as an 11-year-old in 1992 Los Angeles. “They had let us go home [from school] during the riots and there was ash everywhere,” she remembered in her Vanity Fair interview, recalling how she saw the ash settle on their lawn. “Oh, my God, Mommy, it’s snowing!” she remarked at the time. “No, Flower, it’s not snow,” her mother, Doria Ragland, answered. “Get in the house.”
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Markle has also spoken about seeing her mother called the N-word in front of her as a college student. “We were leaving a concert and she wasn’t pulling out of a parking space quickly enough for another driver,” she recalled in an essay for Elle about growing up as a mixed-race kid, revealing how shocked she was by the incident. “It’s okay, Mommy,” she told Ragland, trying to soothe her mother. “I shared my mom’s heartache, but I wanted us to be safe,” Markle added.
