Harry, Megan & Piers Morgan Saga

[Preety_India]

@DnoReally what are the similarities with Kardashians? 

 

[DnoReally]

@Preety_India You just wait til they make a Reality TV Show out of this whole thing.

[Preety_India]

@DnoReally  I don't see that coming though.. 

I think the mistake that Markle made was thinking that the royal family is some kind of celebrity like American celebrities. But when she entered the palace, their coldness made her realize that it was nothing like American celebrity. 

I also think that Markle kept it quite dignified.. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Preety_India

[snowyowl]

Reality show? Lol the Royal Family is a cash cow for the press & media, it sells copy very well indeed. Also the Royals need the press to keep their profile and popularity with the public, so it's a mutual benefit thing. Until it goes wrong - if this results in the end of the Monarchy it's not just the Royals who will lose out. 

[Danioover9000]

15 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@snowyowl

   That's exactly the case. There's more going on than what Meghan and Harry would let on, underlying the current situation. Also, this thread is over generalizing racism, so I'll explicitly tell you which degree of racism is dangerous, mild, or below awareness. Here it is:

1. All, including You have racist thoughts, deep in your subconscious mind, that place where your conscious mind cannot compute the sheer amount of thoughts related to racism. Having racist related thoughts does not mean you are an evil racist. Thoughts range from covert to mild, and some to few groups may have stronger forms of racist thought patterns. By themselves, they have relatively low harm.

2. Having negative feelings in your mind/body, from experiencing a human being of different colour and shape for the first time, does not make you an evil racist. Emotions related to threats, actual to perceived forms to one's race or ethnic group, mostly range from mild to subconscious. It is possible to feel so strongly that your body will adjust to threats accordingly. By themselves, unless the intensity is strong enough, pose little harm.

3. Having racist related thought stories and emotional responses to a person/group of difference to you/your in-group, stemming from culture/up-bringing, does not mean your are an evil racist. This is more chronic than acute case of racism, that too can be mild to subconscious, and can build up over time if no release is done.

4. Having beliefs, thoughts stories, and negative emotions that are racist related, and patterns of behavior towards an object, non-living(a table), and living, un-related to racism, does not mean you are an evil racist, i.e. me drinking tea, saying hi, does not make me an evil racist. 

5. Having thoughts, beliefs, negative emotions, that are race related, and communicating in a hard-R way, in context, does not make you an evil racist. This is where most people have more potential and possibility to confuse an act, verbal or non-verbal, as racist, without carefully minding the context. This is where abstraction can further confuse. Some negative aspects of cancel culture, cancelling an online creator, later proven innocent, come to mind, where mob mentality follows closely. 

6. Having thoughts, beliefs, negative emotions, communicate in race related ways, and acting/behaving in a racist way, in context of acting in a movie scene, does not make you an evil racist, unless the role you play in the movie has you be an evil racist. 

   All the above is natural to being a person in duality with other people, until you do the following below:

7. Follow through with destructive acts/behaviors that a related to race, from covert to intensely violent action. This makes you an actual evil racist, to choose to act on those underlying urges, even unconsciously. Even these patterns of behavior have degrees of mild to strong forms of racism, to subconscious adjustments your mind/body goes through when meeting different people you don't know well enough.

   This should not be used to justify staying at your current development, defend your cognitive biases, your morality/ethics, attack other people, but instead use what I've listed as a way to self check patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Anything else beyond this self reflection, is already you weaponizing what I've said, or what other people have said here, regardless of where you stand on this issue, as the aggressor or victim. I suggest you look before you leap to your high horse, and catch how your ego weaponizes these patterns, other wise we just get word salad and little understanding of the deeper problem, and get lost on surface level problems.

   

   Another issue I forgot to add, is that race, ethnocentrism and culture are entangled, such that which ever culture you choose to support or hate, you would be racist and a bigot in the eyes of your own culture/in group, and a potential traitor in the out group/other culture you're  supporting. For example, if I like the Nordic culture, because they are capable at seafaring and have their mythology, I must alsk be prepared  to be called a slaver, murderer  and rapist by associating with a culture that historically did coastal invasions, pillaged and sold and owned slaves. Just because I have a bias for certain cultures and highlight their differences and achievements doesn't mean that makes me safe feom being a racist, because like I said it's also deep in the subconscious mind.

[Preety_India]

48 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

Reality show? Lol the Royal Family is a cash cow for the press & media, it sells copy very well indeed. Also the Royals need the press to keep their profile and popularity with the public, so it's a mutual benefit thing. Until it goes wrong - if this results in the end of the Monarchy it's not just the Royals who will lose out. 

I know right.

At this point, the Royals themselves have become a reality TV show. 

I heard that P Harry said that the royal paid the London media for a fairer publicity. If that's true, it shows how deep the Royal family goes into making sure that they are always in the eyes of the British public. 

But they always claim privacy? Haha. 

 

[snowyowl]

@Preety_India  yes, it seems to me a very tight balancing act between getting good publicity and having a private life. It's part of the deal of being born into - or marrying into - all that wealth & power is that you have to surrender a lot of personal freedoms to the family firm. I think the Queen is an advocate of doing her duty over pleasing herself. Also Prince Philip had to give up his Greek nationality and surname, and become more British in order to marry Elizabeth (like previous generations had to give up their partly German identity at the time of the first world war). But they're the older generation, now the younger members are clashing with this Duty and stiff upper lip culture of their parents. 

@Danioover9000  Good points but don't be too hard on yourself, you can like a culture but be nuanced about its good and bad aspects - especially historical ones like Viking imperialism - I can't think of any human culture which is all good. Its not like a binary choice between being / not being a racist. I try to remind myself how mixed up cultures are, the idea of in-groups and out-groups is really just made up and collapses when you delve back into the history far enough. My own homeland of UK was uninhabitable during the last ice age (up to 10,000 years ago), so everybody here has migrated from abroad since then. 

[Danioover9000]

@snowyowl

1 hour ago, snowyowl said:

@Preety_India  yes, it seems to me a very tight balancing act between getting good publicity and having a private life. It's part of the deal of being born into - or marrying into - all that wealth & power is that you have to surrender a lot of personal freedoms to the family firm. I think the Queen is an advocate of doing her duty over pleasing herself. Also Prince Philip had to give up his Greek nationality and surname, and become more British in order to marry Elizabeth (like previous generations had to give up their partly German identity at the time of the first world war). But they're the older generation, now the younger members are clashing with this Duty and stiff upper lip culture of their parents. 

@Danioover9000  Good points but don't be too hard on yourself, you can like a culture but be nuanced about its good and bad aspects - especially historical ones like Viking imperialism - I can't think of any human culture which is all good. Its not like a binary choice between being / not being a racist. I try to remind myself how mixed up cultures are, the idea of in-groups and out-groups is really just made up and collapses when you delve back into the history far enough. My own homeland of UK was uninhabitable during the last ice age (up to 10,000 years ago), so everybody here has migrated from abroad since then. 

   I used that as an example, and I stopped because the list would be long if I listed other cultures. It came up because that's  entangled with racism.

   However, back more to OP's topic, is another real issue, is that Harry and Maghan are more privileged than the common people, i.e in the USA and UK. The fact they were complaining in their interview with Oprah that their security wouldn't be  provided by the Queen is a blatant lie, because the quuen does not decide who gets security, it's the royal branch jn London that decides security. Harry and Meghan are worth millions, live upper class, complaining to the common people to pay, with their tax and hard earned money, their security. Also, Meghan ain't no next Diana, because of age difference, and she couldn't last the 20 years of living in the royal family, so the comparison is bad at best.

   I like how some users here point out to other users that they're living detached from reality, when Harry and Maghan are so far detached from reality that they have the gall to complain to common folk to pay for their security. I'm sorry for the common people, also for Pier Morgans as well, because he spoke up about that interview, despite his status. I think Nigel Farage said it best, and I paraphrase, that 'they should have their titles removed and live like normal people'.

   Didn't  occur to me till now that privilege also is a factor here too.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Danioover9000

[snowyowl]

Yeah, I suppose privilege is why this whole story is running in the first place. But on reflection, how many of us in a blue/orange society really want to challenge privilege, as far as voting for political parties which radically change the hierarchy? The Monarchy is just the top of a pyramid which has many layers of privilege and dis-advantage. 

And it's true that Harry & Meghan decided to move out of the UK jurisdiction for security & policing to a foreign country, so it's not really within the power of the authorities to provide it, unless as you say the taxpayer is expected to pay for a private security, or the US govt choose to provide it. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by snowyowl

[Preety_India]

19 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

And it's true that Harry & Meghan decided to move out

The question is why did they move out in the first place. Because the royal family wasn't ready to equip them on royal terms. 

[Danioover9000]

@snowyowl

1 hour ago, snowyowl said:

Yeah, I suppose privilege is why this whole story is running in the first place. But on reflection, how many of us in a blue/orange society really want to challenge privilege, as far as voting for political parties which radically change the hierarchy? The Monarchy is just the top of a pyramid which has many layers of privilege and dis-advantage. 

And it's true that Harry & Meghan decided to move out of the UK jurisdiction for security & policing to a foreign country, so it's not really within the power of the authorities to provide it, unless as you say the taxpayer is expected to pay for a private security, or the US govt choose to provide it. 

   Yes, the story started with them complaining  from a place of privilege and expectation of being more successful in the royal family, only to complain when they can't get more than that.

   As far as individuals in stage blue/orange societies, I don't think there's enough incentive to go and challenge the structural norms of their society, as currently they are benefiting to some degree. However, let's stick to OP's topic without derailing thread.

   Actually, this whole thing started because Meghan expected to be the next princess Diana, or the queen, when marrying Harry, but that being not the case, putting pressure on Harry to either make the decision to remaun in the royal family, or split off from them to try to become independently successful with his business. Actually, the royal family has enough requisite varity in facilitating Meghan and Harry in tbe family, provided that Meghan and Harry was satisfied with their current position, yet as it turns out, that wasn't the case. In fact, it's because of Meghan that Harry made the decision to split off, but also because he decided to be in this relationship with Meghan in the first place, so technically this whole mess was Harry's fault .

Edited March 12, 2021 by Danioover9000

[Epikur]

This whole thing shows the Royal institution is outdated. It does not make much sense in current times.

Meghan seems to hot for her husband. She looks like Jennifer Lopez. She outmatches him on looks. So she just might digging what she sees as gold.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Epikur

[JTL]

@Leo Gura I understand what you mean, but racism is not and have never been just about skin color. It has been blood, summed up by the nazis as blood and soil. It has been about racial features and awful lot about headskulls etc etc.(european jews you could say is white meaning you could not pick them out from other white europeans ) I would say that is old school racism, and today we largely just think about skin color as racism. 

[Danioover9000]

@Yali  It's best not to be provocative with some users here, if you don't have anything too valuable to say. No matter how provocative or argumentative you get, some users will remain the same.

[Preety_India]

@snowyowl what do you think about the situation regarding how P Diana was treated by the royal family. 

 

 

[Danioover9000]

@JTL

26 minutes ago, JTL said:

@Leo Gura I understand what you mean, but racism is not and have never been just about skin color. It has been blood, summed up by the nazis as blood and soil. It has been about racial features and awful lot about headskulls etc etc.(european jews you could say is white meaning you could not pick them out from other white europeans ) I would say that is old school racism, and today we largely just think about skin color as racism. 

   Were you referring to ethnocentrism? Yes, in the past it was more heavily about that, along with emphasizing differences with physical features in conjunction to emergence in biology, evolution and such. On top of skin colour, we also have linguistic racism and covert racism currently.

[Danioover9000]

   Playing devil's advocate, I've found an interesting video of an American's take on the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry: I have more nuanced view on this, but even someone not invested in this situation, had what seems to me an intuition that racism is not the core issue in the interview, that there's much more than racism. I would imagine most people that has little to no interest may have similar views that this person has, yet that may not be the case. It's also interesting to me his speaking patterns are similar to those who physically descriminate race by physical features.

   What are your thoughts on this person's view? 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Danioover9000

[Epikur]

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Epikur

[Danioover9000]

@Epikur

3 hours ago, Epikur said:

 

   This is a good video. Just wow, I learned a bit more about this situation. Yikes.

[snowyowl]

5 hours ago, Preety_India said:

@snowyowl what do you think about the situation regarding how P Diana was treated by the royal family. 

 

 

I guess a similarity with Meghan is that they were both trapped by the cultural difference with life in the royal family and didn't feel welcomed. But there are some differences too; Charles was the heir and felt under pressure in his early 30s to get married and have children to continue the line. In hindsight Diana & Charles wasn't a good love match, as Charles still held a candle for Camilla and both Charles & Diana started having affairs. Harry and Meghan are really in love aren't they?  

The Royal family is slowly modernising, but more slowly than the rest of society so it may appear (to people in stage orange & above) that they're out of date. Back when Diana got married, the heir to the throne wasn't allowed to marry a Catholic or divorcee (the Monarch is the head of the Church of England), and the oldest son inherited the title, as was the old aristocratic tradition. That's been relaxed now so it's not as bad as during Diana's time.