William and Kate Criticized for Recent Joint Appearance Years After Meghan Left: ‘It’s a Bit Too Late,’ Commentator Says
Prince William and Kate Middleton are coming under fire for their October 2023 appearance to mark the U.K.’s Black History Month. In addition to questioning the Prince and Princess of Wales’s motives, a royal commentator says the joint appearance felt “too late” after multiple race scandals and Meghan Markle’s 2020 departure.
William and Kate marked Black History Month and the Windrush generation anniversary on October 3
After multiple solo appearances, William and Kate reunited to kick off the U.K.’s Black History Month. On Oct. 3, 2023, the parents of three visited Cardiff, Wales.
There, they greeted students, met with those of the Windrush Generation, played ping pong, and chatted with members of the Ethnic Minority Youth Forum.
The appearance coincided with the start of Black History Month on October 1, 2023, as well as the 75-year anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush, the ship that brought Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948, per Newsweek.
Although Prince Edward and Sophie, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, marked Black History Month in 2020, William is now the first future monarch to do so.
Commentator notes William and Kate ‘chose not’ to mark Black History Month when Meghan was a working royal
“It just seems to me, why now? And it’s a bit too late,” Afua Hagan, a royal commentator, told the outlet. “Does it ring true for me? I’m not sure. Is it good that they’re marking something? Yes, it is.”
However, William and Kate didn’t mark the occasion during their sister-in-law the Duchess of Sussex’s time as a working royal, which, per Hagan, was a “missed opportunity.”
“I mean, the theme for Black History Month is celebrating our sisters. It’s about uplifting black women,” she said. “But they had a black woman in their family, and they chose not to do that. With Meghan Markle, they never marked Black History Month while she was part of that family. I think that’s a real shame and a complete missed opportunity.”
In 2016, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, released a statement regarding the “racial undertones of comment pieces and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls” after his and Meghan’s relationship became public.
Five years later, in March 2021, the couple shared an unnamed royal voiced their “concern” about Prince Archie’s skin color before his May 2019 birth, which Harry later described as unconscious bias.
Commentator questions the timing of William and Kate’s U.K. Black History Month appearance: ‘Why now?’
Hagan continued, highlighting the November 2022 scandal involving Susan Hussey, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s former lady-in-waiting. Hussey stepped down after asking a charity founder where she was “really” from multiple times during an event at Buckingham Palace.
“It’s the Prince and Princess Wales doing it, which is good because they have an appeal to a wider population, a younger generation as well,” Hagan said. “But why now?”
“Why haven’t you ever marked it before?” she asked. “Is it because at the end of last year, the royal family was engulfed in a race storm where you had someone who was visiting the palace ask repeatedly, ‘Where are you from?'”
Also referencing William’s “We’re very much not a racist family” comment following Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview, Hagan asked: “Is this them trying to prove that they’re not a racist family by now all of a sudden embracing Black History Month?”
Meanwhile, there is mounting pressure on King Charles III, as the leader of the British royal family, to apologize for slavery and discuss reparations.
“They’re under huge pressure over the questions of reparations and slavery,” Hagan said, noting that “origins of some of the Crown jewels and of some of the things in the king’s collection that have been forcibly removed from other countries” have come into question. In addition, there’s “pressure from countries who want to leave the realms.”
