Meghan Markle returned ‘home’ last week. Not to her children and chickens in Montecito, California, but to Nigeria – a country where she has never lived, never before visited and has no known living relatives.
And yet, accompanied by Prince Harry, on a royal tour in all but name, Meghan thanked Nigerians for ‘welcoming me home’.
It turns out that several years ago, the Duchess of Sussex took a genealogy test that gave her a breakdown of her ancestry. Apparently, she is 43 per cent Nigerian. For most people, this would be the basis of a fun anecdote and not much more. As Scientific American notes: ‘We all have thousands of ancestors, and our family trees become matted webs as we go back in time, which means that before long, our ancestors become everyone’s ancestors.’
Clearly there is something other than supposed familial ties that attracted Meghan and Harry to Nigeria. On this latest trip, the couple were treated like actual royalty for once, with red carpets, posh receptions and waving crowds. The plebs in Blighty might roll their eyes at Meghan’s overpriced jam business, but in Nigeria she was honoured with royal titles. She really is a princess, no matter what her critics say!
Perhaps the only thing more important to Meghan than being perceived as a princess is being perceived as a victim. ‘Being African American, part of it is not knowing so much about your lineage or background, where you come from specifically’, she declared during her Nigerian visit. What Meghan is driving at here is the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. This uprooted millions of African men, women and children and made it impossible for those captured to maintain contact with their homeland or relatives.
But for Montecito’s lifestyle queen to link herself to the barbaric history of slavery neatly overlooks her present privilege and fabulous wealth. Lucky Megs benefitted not just from her royal marriage, but also, presumably, from her parents going to great lengths to make sure their daughter could follow her ambitions. Now she chooses to play-act as the victim, rather than acknowledge the privilege her parents handed down to her.
