ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 explores the framing of Meghan Markle as a trophy wife of diversity, someone to whom both elite and non-elite whites can point to as proof of the alleged end of racism within the UK. This commonplace portrayal of her, and of the British context, obscures the white-racist policies and laws white Britons generally, even enthusiastically, support. While Meghan Markle’s entry into the royal family and the birth of her son are undeniably salient for their impact on British society and the Commonwealth of Nations, Chapter 3 documents how the romanticized view of a post-racial Britain is very much out of touch with the everyday realities of continuing and systemic racial hostility and discrimination in the UK. Chapter 3 also examines how, in accentuating her mixed-race status and her speaking out mostly about sexism—but not about gendered racism—first as an actress and later as a senior royal, Meghan Markle helped reinforce the view that racial characteristics are somewhat inconsequential in contemporary UK and US societies. She bolstered, perhaps unintentionally, the white-framed idea that racial characteristics are no longer as meaningful as they truly are in determining the life chances of people of color or their presentation of self in everyday life.
