The first three episodes of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s new Netflix series, “Harry & Meghan,” is here, and it’s already given viewers a deeper dive into Markle’s long history dealing with racism, including hearing her mother get called the N-word and be mistaken for her nanny.
It all went down during the second episode, which premiered on Thursday, Dec, 8, in which Markle described her upbringing as a biracial woman living in L.A. with her mother, Doria Ragland, a social worker, who is visibly much darker than her famous daughter.
“I grew up in L.A., and I just remember my mom telling me stories about taking me to the grocery store and women going, ‘Whose child is that? You must be the …’” Meghan recalled. The Duchess of Sussex said her mother would ultimately yell back, “It’s my child,” but to no avail. She continued, “They were like, ‘No ― you must be the nanny, where’s her mom?’ ‘Cause I was really fair-skinned and my mom, darker.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Markle passed by the Hollywood Bowl while driving around her old neighborhood. She recalled an incident where her mother was called the N-word, revealing that it had been the first time she heard the derogatory term.
“My mom honked her horn, this woman was taking a long time to figure out how to get out, and the woman turned around and screamed the N-word at my mom,” the “Archetypes” host explained. “I just remember my mom, the grip that her hands had on the steering wheel. You could [see it] was so tight, like the knuckles get all white, and she was just silent the rest of the drive home. We never talked about it.”
“It’s very different to be a minority but not be treated as a minority right off the bat,” Markle continued. “Obviously, now people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the U.K. But before that, most people didn’t treat me like a ‘Black woman.’ So that talk didn’t have to happen for me,” the actress continued.
Markle’s mother added, “As a parent, in hindsight, absolutely, I would like to go back and have that kind of real conversation about how the world sees you.” The sit-down marked the 66-year-old’s first public appearance since her daughter married Prince Harry in 2018.
As readers may remember, Meghan stunned the world with her tell-all interview last year with talk show host Oprah Winfrey. During her interview, Markle brought forth several allegations against the royal family, including claims that their son Archie would not receive security detail or an official title — a move that goes against the monarchy’s tradition.
She also alleged that there were concerns about her son’s skin tone prior to his birth. Markle is both Black and white and claimed that her being biracial raised worry among some of the members of the royal family.
The last three episodes of “Harry & Meghan” will drop on Dec. 15 and include “commentary from friends and family, most of whom had never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed.”
