Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and husband of the United Kingdom’s long-serving monarch Queen Elizabeth, has died. He was 99.
“His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle,” said Buckingham Palace in a statement announcing the death on Friday.
But this is The Root, not a British tabloid, so why are we reporting on the death of an old white man from the U.K. who was approaching a century of life on earth and has been in and out of the hospital in the past few years, including for a heart operation last month?
Because Meghan Markle, the favorite punching bag of the aforementioned British tabloid set and racists everywhere (including those on our side of the Atlantic) is, unsurprisingly but insanely, already being tied to this geriatric man’s death.
“There are reports that he was enraged after the interview and the fall out from the interview with Oprah Winfrey,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, said douchily on Fox and Friends Friday morning. “Here he is trying to recover, and then he gets hit with that.”
Gets hit with what? A mixed race woman and her husband having the temerity to speak with Oprah Winfrey, in the United States, where they live, while there exists a 99-year-old man in Britain who, as far as we could see, did nothing to challenge the racist attacks of the British media—and within the royal family, according to what Meghan and Harry said during the interview—against his grandson’s wife and mixed race child?
To paraphrase Nene Leakes, now why is Meghan in it?
But we all know why. Because she is Black.
Kilmeade went on to pile more vile accusations against the Duchess of Sussex, by parroting the words of noted Meghan-hater, Piers Morgan (who Fox News has heartily embraced as part of an international joining of the racist forces for the British monarchy and against Meghan).
“Just think about this,” continued Kilmeade. “Your grandfather’s in the hospital, you know he’s not doing well, is it really the time you have to put out this interview? And evidently it definitely added to his stress.”
Evidently an interview recorded before Philip’s hospitalization added to his stress? Where are the receipts? The palace said he died peacefully!
And as far as I can see, the prince spent much of his life luxuriating off the wealth of the Black, brown and indigenous people colonized around the globe by the British, and lived to a ripe 99 years of life with the aid of top-notch healthcare to stave off the toll that old age was taking on his body.
I also find it hard to believe that accusations of racism in his family would bother Philip that deeply, given that while alive he liked to make bigoted comments whenever it took his fancy—which was frequently.
While some mainstream publications have euphemistically described Philip’s notorious comments as being “frank,” “irascible” and “gaffes,” they’re more clearly described as outright nasty.
“If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed,” he once told a group of British students who were studying in China, according to the Guardian.
In 1988, speaking of what he’d like to happen upon his death, Philip said, “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.”
But an old man in Britain is dead and somehow that’s the fault of a Black woman in the late stages of her pregnancy—months after suffering a miscarriage, and weeks after revealing that she grappled with suicidal thoughts due to being demonized by the media and left in the lurch by senior members of the British royal family.
The question now, of course, is whether or not Meghan will travel to the U.K. to pay her respects at Prince Philip’s funeral.
I don’t see why she should, for all the above-mentioned reasons, and the plain fact that no matter what she does, this solemn event will be used to paint her as a villain.
Because the truth is, as light-skinned as she is, Meghan is a Black woman and in the minds of many, that makes her a monster with superhuman powers.
Though Prince Philip has passed, I am saving most of my sympathy for Meghan in what will clearly be a messy news cycle in the aftermath of his death. She will need it.