Harry and Meghan recently joined representatives from the Queen's Commonwealth Trust to discuss racial injustice and the ongoing struggle for equality that is taking place around the world. On July 1, they joined Chrisann Jarrett, M.T. Omoniyi, Abdullahi Alim, and Alicia Wallace as part of the ongoing weekly discussions the Commonwealth Trust has been engaging in.
The trust is one of the patronages that Harry and Meghan have held onto as they move away from their previous senior roles in the monarchy. Harry serves as the president of the trust, and Meghan is the organization's vice president.
In a notable moment, Harry directly addressed Britain's long history of colonialism and imperialism. "When you look across the Commonwealth, there is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past … We all acknowledge there's so much more still to do. It's not going to be easy and in some cases, it's not going to be comfortable … And guess what, everybody benefits."
Harry and Meghan also led a discussion about implicit bias and its power in society. Implicit bias "refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner," according to The Ohio State University's Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. In other words, implicit bias is the socialization we all get about other people, even if we don't realize it. It's important to understand the concept because many (if not all) of us act on our implicit biases all the time without even meaning to.
As a hugely important member of the British royal family, Harry understands the power this bias can hold: "We can't deny or ignore the fact that all of us have been educated to see the world differently. However, once you start to realize that there is that bias there, then you need to acknowledge it, you need to do the work to become more aware … so that you can help stand up for something that is so wrong and should not be acceptable in our society today."
This is a huge statement for Harry to make, and it's also a wonderful indication of how far he has come in his own work on the topic. In his youth, Harry famously had quite a few questionable moments in terms of race, privilege, and living his life as a very famous, wealthy white male. That he is engaging in conversations on this topic really shows that this work isn't out of reach for all of us.
Meghan added that implicit bias isn't just about the moments that are obvious: "It's not just in the big moments, it's in the quiet moments where racism and unconscious bias lies and thrives. It makes it confusing for a lot of people to understand the role that they play in that, both passively and actively."
Meghan and Harry also assured the young leaders that they were fully supportive of them. Meghan said, "Keep up the incredible work and know that we are right there with you, standing in solidarity. We're going to get there … and we have a lot of renewed faith and energy in that having had this conversation."
Several of the participants also made very important contributions to the meeting. Chrisann Jarrett noted that everyone involved needs to be prepared to do work for a long time: "We all need to be in this for the long run. This is not a hashtag. It's about being persistent with the demand that change must come and we're not going to stop until it comes."
Harry and Meghan are definitely no strangers to engaging in conversations about potentially challenging and difficult topics, but so far they are the only members of the family to do so lately. Meghan recently addressed the death of George Floyd in a commencement speech at her former school.
A spokesperson for the couple said that Meghan "felt compelled to directly address and speak to these young women about what's happening in this country right now around the killing of George Floyd — as well as what's been happening over many, many years and many, many generations to countless other Black Americans."
Meghan also shared that she was anxious about speaking up but knew that she had to: "I wanted to say the right thing and I was really nervous that I wouldn't, or that it would get picked apart, and I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing. Because George Floyd's life mattered and Breonna Taylor's life mattered and Philando Castile's life mattered and Tamir Rice's life mattered."
The royal family is traditionally apolitical by design, but many have argued that racism and police violence are not political: People's lives are at stake. Lady Amelia Windsor, the Queen's cousin, also appears to have attended Black Lives Matter protests in Cambridge, but so far no one else from the family has given any indication that they're even aware of the tensions that exist in the UK and around the world.
