ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 considers multiple ways in which Britons who are subjugated by class, racial, and gender oppression regularly push back against those dominations and their legitimating frames. Specifically, the degree to which Meghan Markle is a feminist counter-framer and anti-racist counter-framer is assessed. Also addressed is her in-laws’ front-stage acceptance of selected elements of her progressiveness, as well as their more subtle and covert attempts to rein in her more reformist social and political leanings. It is argued that while Meghan Markle’s overt fight for social equality and justice makes her a disrupter of elite-white dominance, her brand of feminism and anti-racism—at least at the time of writing—embody a predominant focus on the individual sexist and racist. As such, Chapter 5 documents how she mostly fails to shed much light on the underlying social structures that regularly thwart the achievements of women and girls and of people of color. Chapter 5 also gives attention to Meghan Markle’s periodic black counter-framing, such as during her wedding to Prince Harry. She has, so far, mostly limited this resistance counter-framing to the marriage ceremony itself. Drawing again on the concept of the white racial frame, we illustrate how the ceremony demonstrates at least four major elements of the black counter-frame. Also detailed is how white British royals reacted to the counter-framing during the rather unique marriage ceremony. Chapter 5 begins with highlighting examples from Meghan Markle’s advocacy for women, and then what some scholars call intersectionality. Examples of the ways in which white racism plays out differently for women of color, including for the Duchess of Sussex, than for men of color are examined.
