What William Said

I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s headline news that, as William and Kate were in east London to congratulate teachers involved in re-opening schools following the lockdown, they walked past a reporter who asked: “Sir, have you spoken to your brother since the interview?” William replied: “No, I haven’t spoken to him yet but I will do.” The reporter continued: “Can you just let me know is the royal family a racist family sir?” As he walked on, William turned to say: “We’re very much not a racist family.”

William’s statement saddened me and, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is exactly why things don’t change, don’t get any better for minorities because people who are racists don’t know they’re racists and don’t believe or accept that label when faced with it.

Back in the day the rationalizations used to be ... “We’re not racists, we have a Black gardener ... a Black cook ... my parents had a Black maid”. And the family was probably very good to that gardener, cook, maid, so long as that gardener, cook, maid presented themselves as was expected, i.e., subservient, knew their place and acted that place.

But woe be unto that gardener, cook, maid if they didn’t play along and stepped out of the role assigned to them because, not only would they have been deemed ungrateful ─ for not appreciating how well they'd been treated and fired, they’d probably get a late night visit from the klan.

The Royals may very well not be a racist family per se. In fact, how could they be when, once again I say, they have Black blood in them through Queen Charlotte. But then, in some aspects, they very well may be because they don’t get it.

Don’t get that when you treat a person of color differently than you would one not of color, say something to or about a person of color that you'd not ascribe to one not of color, that’s racist behavior.

When you expect a person of color to fit the role you in your mind have assigned as to how a person of color should be, as opposed to having no such assignment to people not of color, that’s racist.

I brought up the three witches I worked for at the law firm yesterday. They would be shocked to sit down with me today and hear how I felt about all they said and did.

Racists!? We’re not racists!

They just did not see, nor could they ever understand that treating me differently, expecting me to perform duties they never ask a white secretary to do fell under the auspices of racism.

Like the time one of them set a rule that, when she approached my desk while I was typing, instead of stopping to type, fingers still hoovering over the keys, head turned towards her while listening and paying attention to what she was telling me, I was to remove my fingers away from the keyboard altogether, turn face forward towards her, fold my hands on the desk until her conservation with me ended.

This request, out of the blue, after four years of putting up with all the b.s., was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I was done with the witches, put in a transfer and got it.

Of course the witches didn’t understand why ─ after all, we’d all gotten along so well in their eyes, and they did like me, they just didn’t realize how they treated me, because I was Black, they could get away with it and knew I had no recourse, was neither kind or normal behavior, and that I'd ever stop putting up with, so they fought the transfer.

Lost.

Tried to make trouble for me in my new position, so I’d come back.

Lost again.

Then, when I left that firm after 20+ years because I was completely vested and sought a second retirement, I ended up with those klan people.

They also did not consider themselves racists. They just didn’t like Black people. LOL.

Actually, that’s not 100% accurate, because they could tolerate Black people so long as they were the subservient kind that knew their place.

They really didn’t even dislike me. It was just that I came in there the consummate professional ─ wearing stylish suits, had more skills and abilities than the klan girls, didn’t need anyone to hover over me, talk me step by step through the day ─ which is what my direct boss loved about me, hired me for, but which made me a target with the klan people.

The CEO himself (head klan guy) took a personal interest in me saying to someone on his team, who pretended to be klan ─ for his own protection, but was not part of the klan, who told me CEO would hold meetings discussing me, blurting out in one of those meetings, “Who does she think she is!”

I knew who I was. A child of God, just like him and the others. No better no worse than him and the others, but just as equal.

As far as the CEO rationalized, his holding meetings about little ole me wasn’t racist at all. It was just that I didn’t fit the mold he had of how Black people should be. I was too high, mighty and needed to be taken down.

That’s another thing fed to me by someone at the klan place.

My direct report was a Contract Manager. She loved me and had added to her organizational chart myself and an Assistant Contract Manager. The assistant and I were on the same level, except she didn’t think so. No way was a Black woman going to be on the same level as she, to her thinking, so she gave me grief, tried to dump her work on me.

Not planning to go back and repeat what I'd experienced with the witches, I managed to fend the assistant off at, maybe not every turn, but enough so that she was infuriated with me most days.

One day she was so pissed that, while working out in the company gym, she confided in a guy working out, a guy who was on my team and told me everything she said. Which was, “She doesn’t know her place. I’m going to break her”.

That woman had Black friends, so of course she’d never have accepted the label of racist. Again, it was about me not fitting the mold of what she thought a Black person was to be ─ LESS.

When an additional manager was later hired to be placed over my boss, for the explicit purpose of firing me (CEO went to a lot of trouble, over a number of years, trying to run me out of the company) ─ which, in the end that additional manager did not and could not. She tried by first, the first week she was hired, calling me in to say "They don't like you here. Why don't you go. Just go."

I played stupid. I knew the "they" was just a handful of folks, the klan people, so I acted dumb, "Why should I go? I just got here".

She didn't have an answer, so that was that and she ended up liking me as well. Yet and still there was an expectation she'd never have expected of a white secretary when, she one day sent me an email indicating something to the effect that the office she’d been given was dirty, messy. She told me to schedule some time to come in and clean it, straighten it up for her.

What am I, the maid Prissy from Gone With the Wind, thought I.

I couldn’t say no, couldn’t refuse, because I’d have been written up for insubordination. I just didn’t do it. Pretended the request never happened.

I was like a brick wall, visibly non reactive to the request and her frustration at not being able to get to me.

There was nothing she could do about my not cleaning her office, because it was an improper request and she knew it gave me leverage should a harassment lawsuit ever ensue as a result of everything going on as a whole.

She straightened up the office herself, and could be heard angrily throwing things around, after which she went to the company gym to work off her rage. LOL. 

That manager ended up, if not liking me, at least respecting me, depending on my work skills. She gave me a good review, and quit when the CEO kept pushing her to get rid of me.

So all of this to say there's not a doubt in my mind that there were fractions in the palace who treated Megan differently, thinking here comes this Black girl who doesn’t know her place, and that the royals themselves, though not a racist family per se, had expectations of Megan to be LESS than they, subservient, not equal, and for sure were worried Archie’s skin color would not be an acceptable color.

The people who think they are not racist just don't get it. Don't get how treating a person differently damages a person to the core and IS racist behavior.