American Princess by Leslie Carroll

Author:Leslie Carroll
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062859440
Publisher: HarperCollins

Moving On and Moving Out

Suits and Charities Abroad

USA is the number one non-news cable network in America, and Suits soon rocketed to number one on its prime-time roster. Meghan’s career had taken off. In 2012, during the show’s second season, the character of Rachel’s father, a high-powered attorney embodied by the formidable African American actor Wendell Pierce, entered the show.

Meghan believed her role on Suits was crucial because “some households may never have had a black person in their house as a guest or someone biracial. Well, now there are a lot of us on your TV screen and in your home with you.”

However, America in particular has a fraught—and sadly, ongoing—history of racism. Some were incapable of accepting the country’s biracial president at the time, and seeing a mixed race character on their television sets sparked an outcry. Internet trolls crawled out from under their boulders to tweet reactions that ranged from surprised (“Rachel is black?”) to confused (“Why would they make her dad black? She’s not black”) to repulsed (“Ew, Rachel is black? I used to think she was hot”). That last comment was reported for violating the terms of use and eventually blocked, but Twitter permitted equally hurtful and racist remarks to be posted.

Meghan wrote that the comments were unexpected—yet they captured something of the zeitgeist of the times in the wake of the racial unrest of the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri. “As a biracial woman I watch in horror as both sides of a culture I define as my own become victims of spin in the media, perpetuating stereotypes and reminding us that the States has perhaps only placed bandages over the problems that never healed at the root.”

When the five-seven Meghan started booking print modeling assignments, it would frustrate her to see her freckles removed and/or her skin tone lightened by magazine editors with a heavy hand on Photoshop. The practice remained a pet peeve even after she became a star because it airbrushes her ethnicity. It was Thomas Markle who had taught his daughter to be proud of every one of her features, telling her that “a face without freckles is a night without stars,” and Meghan has encouraged other young women of every race and color to embrace their natural beauty; and if they want to show it, fight for it.

Ironically, Meghan would eventually star in two television movies, When Sparks Fly (in 2014) and Dater’s Handbook (in 2016) for the Hallmark Channel, the most Wonder Bread, lily-white television storyteller, playing white characters, young women with two white parents and no mention of their ethnicity in the script. But because her real mother has dreadlocks and looks black, while Meghan looks pale enough to convincingly portray Caucasian characters, she frequently heard hurtful comments about whether Doria was in fact her biological parent.

Meghan wrote in an Elle magazine article in 2015, “to describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined. Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear.

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