Hillary Clinton is currently on a book tour with her daughter Chelsea. That’s why there are so many Clinton interviews these days. Because it’s a lighter book (The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience), they’re being asked about stuff other than gloom and Trumpy doom. Which is how they were asked about the Duchess of Sussex’s treatment by the press, and Meghan and Harry’s lawsuits. Hillary has made pro-Meghan comments before, and she’s clearly a big fan of Meghan. Hillary and Chelsea had some new thoughts:
Hillary Clinton is speaking out in support of Meghan Markle. In a new interview published in U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times, the former first lady, 71, and her daughter Chelsea Clinton were asked about Meghan and husband Prince Harry’s decision to take legal action against the British media.
“I do want to say that the way she’s been treated is inexplicable,” the former Secretary of State said.
“If the explanation is that she’s biracial, then shame on everybody,” she added, noting that she personally believed the Duchess of Sussex’s race is “certainly part of it.”
Her daughter Chelsea went on to add that another explanation could have to do with Meghan’s advocacy — which she has continued throughout her time as a royal.
“She proudly had a career first and has a voice that she thankfully continues to use,” the mother of three, 39, said. “Anyone who has the temerity to break the mold of what has previously been established and expected often, unfortunately, receives criticism and bile that I don’t understand. We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. I don’t know her, but as someone who respects her, I’m so grateful that she persists, and is unbowed, and is doing work she feels called to do. And isn’t willing to be bullied.”
We’re basically three years into Harry and Meghan’s relationship – it was the fall of 2016 when we first learned about their relationship, and we’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of their engagement announcement. In that time, we’ve seen A LOT of racism. The racism blurs a lot of the other stuff, but that other stuff is still there: misogyny and sexism, anti-Americanism, the bias against “actresses” and a snottiness about Meghan being a self-made woman and a divorcee. There’s also the utter disgust with Meghan being a well-connected, college-educated woman who knows her own mind. But yeah… it’s mostly racism, sexism and anti-Americanism, at least from the British tabloid press.
Incidentally, the Sussexes finally said goodbye to Samantha Cohen, their private secretary (basically their chief of staff). Cohen was always a temporary, transitional private secretary and Cohen stayed longer than she originally intended so she could help the Sussexes get set up on their own. The Sussexes already have their new private secretary (Fiona Mcilwham) in place.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid, Avalon Red.
I mean, she’s stating the obvious so nothing that shocking about her comment.
Her being biracial, divorce and American has everything to do with the way other people are treating her abominably. I was watching an episode of gogglebox (a rare occasion) and some of the viewers there were upset that Harry was defending Meghan and suing the sun, now defunct news of the world and they think that Meghan controls Harry, one of them said “if Meghan says jump, Harry, asks “how high?””
Even my partner’s mum & her daughter thinks that way of her and thinks dolittle kate hung the moon. Geez.
Where in the UK are you situated? I’m in Glasgow, and I know 1 person that doesn’t like her. Everyone else seems either neutral and positive. But she and the rest of the royals don’t come up a lot, people don’t seem to care all that much about them. Because of that, I sort of figured that was what most of the uk thought, but I realize I might only be getting part of the picture.
I’m in Yorkshire. The royals don’t come up much in conversations but when they do, most people that I know of often like the dolittles more.
WEIRD! My auntie is in Yorkshire and she finds Meghan appalling, too. Kate, however, is all class in her books. Wonder what’s in the water there.
She came for a visit this summer (Toronto) and we were only able to have one superficial conversation about it before identifying that we were on complete opposite sides.
Biracial, American, an actress, educated and financially independent before marriage…
She’s not Diana or Kate: she actually had a life before she married into that hideous family. I scratch my head every day as to why she did it.
Honestly, I think if she is progressive minded and wants to make a difference she would have a greater reach being part of the British monarchy than being a private citizen on a 2nd tier cable show. This isn’t to imply that she doesn’t love Harry but if you’re asking why did she marry in to the family knowing that she may face some scrutiny, I think the greater reach To do advocacy work was a draw.
Dear Lola, do you know that the “second rate show” that you refer to was second in cable ratings only to Game of Thrones? Google it!! Stop undermining people’s hard work and opinions just because they are not like you.
@ Sunshine
Thank you! 😘
I’m constantly reminded of John Oliver’s response to Colbert when asked if he had any advice for Megan before the wedding. And he advised her to run because that family is toxic. You should really watch it if you haven’t already. It’s both hilarious and jarring (and unfortunately accurate). While he was making it funny, you can tell he was also being genuine.
All of what has been said, with racism being top and center, but as Chelsea said as well: Meg refuses to “walk two steps behind”. She has not dropped the causes she believes in, she’s helped Harry to grow and expand further out of *his* narrow lane of walking two steps behind Will and being Will’s Whipping Boy, and for this, “breaking the mold”, that segment of Brits won’t forgive her.
And they, just like the MAGAts here, are the ones braying the loudest.
Pathetic treatment of Meghan and the embiggening of Kate is not doing Kate any favors. The press is telling the world a proper royal wife is a pretty clothes horse and a brood mare for the royal line who is intellectually limited. How many people outside the UK press pack and courtiers are giving Kate prop for her “work”? That has to steam the Cambridges.
Oftentimes, the obvious becomes a “more valid” statement when a white person with some sort of authority says it.
Really, Hillary? None of us would have thought of that already – thank you.
LOL!
It doesn’t hurt to have influential people voicing uncomfortable thoughts out loud. Her words are heard around the world, and carry a lot more weight than the average Joe Public’s words.
And in other news water is indeed wet. On a side though even if she was white I feel they would still give her a hard time because she’s American. Her being black just adds the omg factor to it.
I think her being American is the primary driver of it, there is the Wallis Simpson trope and they are sort of replaying that to a large extent (and Wallis was the fall-guy for Edward 8th because they didn’t really get rid of him because of her, it was because of his behaviour and nazi sympathies etc.). Wallis was a divorced American woman, very fashionable, who had a great influence over a man who at one time was really popular and later, was seen as weak and under her influence. It’s an archetype, a classic trope for the press to play. Another foreigner, who I assume they disliked before we found out she was pretty unlikable anyway, is old princess pushy, princess michael of kent. I am sure even if she was a saint, she would have problems, coming from a country that was on the losing side of WW2.
I don’t disagree that there are racists who dislike Meghan purely because they know she has African DNA, absolutely there are people like that, but interracial couples and mixed-race people are the norm in the UK, I don’t think it is something we get concerned about overall and whatever people may like to think, relatively speaking, the UK is a pretty tolerant society (just ask the interracial couple from the Irish Lidl adverts, who have relocated to the Uk following the furore about them).
I think it’s so funny the cultural difference between “self made” in the UK and in the US. In the US, it’s the sign of success — you made something from nothing, have pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps work ethic, and created a new life for yourself. It’s the ultimate goal.
In the UK, it seems like it’s “low classy”, as Lainey would say. Sure, maybe you’re doing better than the general population, but “old money” look down upon you. You don’t have generational wealth, and being born into wealth seems to automatically get you a certain amount of respect. In the US, this is actually the opposite — we see generational wealth as lazy.
Just interesting to see the differences.
Thanks, Mrs. Spaghetti! I didn’t realize there was that much of a difference in that across the pond, so to speak. As an American, this was an interesting take on the situation.
Think of Lady Mary in Downton Abbey saying to the man she is thinking of marrying (Sir Richard Carlisle) who is a self made man that he comes from the type of family who buys furniture, she comes from the type of family who inherit it.
There’s some of that over here – old money versus the noveau riche – just not as much because the country is younger, so we don’t have dynastic legacies to the same extent. Classism in America is certainly very real, but it is more closely tied to the rural/urban divide and history of ethnoracial prejudice.
This is rooted entirely in both the class system as it functions in the UK, as well as the way the way the US has always been painted in the public imagination as this place where anyone can go and become anyone and reach great heights. You could be born as a peasant in your homeland, but in America, your child still (theoretically) has the same chance of becoming president as anyone else who was born in America. Whereas this would not happen anywhere in Europe in the 18th and 19th century. No peasant could become a monarch.
Of course, the reality is much, MUCH different in America, as we all know. But the potency of that *idea* has always remained. Whereas class has always been this thing that is so much more stratified and structured in the UK. It’s why you get people like popular footballers and entertainers who make billions of dollars, but are still not on an equal social level as someone who’s a posh aristocrat. David Cameron likely has less money than someone like Elton John, but Elton John is still that working class individual who grew up in a council flat while David Cameron had a trust fund and went to Oxford and is descended from barons or w/e.
Can anyone ID Hillary’s necklace?
Bookworm, no need to snark. Smart, upstanding people stating an obvious truth is needed in these times of lies and smoke screens. I would bet money that Trump would disagree with her.
I’m deeply surprised Hillary Clinton has actually followed enough of the news on Meghan to have an opinion on it. I would have thought for sure that she’d be the type to not really care about the royals at all. I guess that since they’re both public figures, there’s some interest there.
Who Meghan is as a person threatens the system. Same with Diana- that’s why they took her out.