Do these confessions make her a racist?

Can Meghan Markle Save the Monarchy?

Irenosen Okojie shows not the slightest awareness that she might be displaying a sort of minority racism, what racism looks like in a person not of the majority race.

The royals are white and she's not; oh, how alienating.

But now it seems there will be one who is not, anyway not entirely, white.

Oh, how exciting.

How angry she and the editors of this paper would be at some white person who wrote this way about the ruling strata in South Africa.

Admittedly, for the most part, until recently I’d been indifferent to the monarchy. 

It felt old-fashioned, an archaic and exclusive institution people of color couldn’t really connect with nor would feel particularly invested in, given its long historical association with colonial projects.

Prince Harry openly and defiantly dating Ms. Markle made me, a black British woman, see the royals slightly differently. 

Suddenly they — or Harry, at least — seemed more open-minded. And it wasn’t just me: Other women of color, too, I found, had begun taking notice and talking about the monarchy. 

Friends discussed the possibility of an engagement, whether the royals would be forward-thinking enough to give Harry permission. 

When the announcement finally came, the reaction from people of color on both sides of the pond was explosive; memes were deployed immediately.

Something was happening; not since Diana, Princess of Wales, has there been this kind of interest from young people in a member of the royal family.

Are we being ushered into a new era where the boundaries of race and class will be blown open in Britain, when people will grow more open-minded about who they can consider as a mate? 

This is probably optimistic, though in some ways not: Interracial marriages are on the rise in Britain. In this sense, the prince and Ms. Markle are following, not leading. 

What is more intriguing is the question of whether, as a result of this unlikely pairing, more people of color will come to feel they have a stake in the country’s most old-fashioned institution.

. . . .

Harry feels millennial, current, like a prince for our times. 

His impact on modernizing the royal family’s image cannot be underestimated. 

He’s made the royals seem more in touch with the public. 

His union with Ms. Markle has shaken to the core the country’s ideas about who is entitled to a seat at the royal table.

We live in strange times, with an American president who panders to right-wing hate, in a world that seems to have taken several steps backward. 

And so in these times, when a British prince goes against both royal and societal norms to propose to his biracial girlfriend, it’s worth taking a moment to smile.