Being a royal secures unfathomable perks. Whether it’s getting a £1m home refurbishment gifted by the taxpayer, ownership of all the swans or a lifetime of inherited privilege for you and your descendants, royal status shields the bestowed from life’s mundane troubles. But even a five-metre Givenchy wedding veil couldn’t save Meghan, Duchess of Sussex from misogynoir and a barrage of trolling.
This week, Kensington Palace had to reach out for help from Twitter and Instagram, as staff members were spending hours each week reporting sexist and racist comments and threats aimed at Meghan and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. The diatribe is so dire that Hello! magazine has started a campaign #HelloToKindness.
Being a woman in public life is not without challenge. Female MPs, athletes and actors are subjected to abuse on and offline. And both Kate and Meghan have been the targets of sexist criticism on the Kensington Palace platforms and in tabloid comment sections. But it should surprise no one that there has been a spike in hateful comments in October and November, following the announcement of Meghan’s pregnancy.
Although a strongly worded letter from Prince Harry in 2016 had put the tabloid media on pause, the reality of a more-melanin-infused royal baby joining the House of Windsor has unleashed the hounds once more. Meghan’s crimes since have been numerous; travesties that include cupping her baby bump in public and painting her fingernails. Kate cupped her bump on numerous occasions to no comment. “Sources” also claim Meghan is “high maintenance”, “demanding” and “made Kate cry”.
Meghan isn’t the first royal to be hounded by the press and criticised frequently. Diana, Princess of Wales was never far away from a front page and faced intense scrutiny. She was also read as a rebel who didn’t follow protocol. But Meghan has the added bonus of being biracial, which brings with it a different type and intensity of abuse.
Social media doesn’t cause online abuse but it is a conduit for societies’ baser beliefs. Online trolling of Meghan and Harry has included six knife emojis and claims that Meghan has bleached her skin to look whiter. A Daily Mail headline referred to her as being from a “gang-scarred” home and “(almost) straight outta Compton”. Comments on the Kensington Palace Instagram called her “trashy” and “ghetto”. Like the recent Sunday Times article that referred to the two schools in “gangland” – known to the rest of us as Newham, east London, where the 2012 Olympics were held – that got a number of black teenagers Oxbridge places, the media, and the trolls that follow them, will associate black people with gangs and crime for the most tenuous of reasons.
Meghan is still subjected to the same racially coded and straight-up racist abuse faced by all black women in public life. Research by Amnesty International found that black women were 84% more likely to be mentioned in abusive tweets than white women. The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, received almost half of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the run-up to the 2017 general election. Race and gender are a potent mix. So when will social media companies finally take some action?
Racism and sexism are social problems. But social media companies could do more to help protect their users. Celebrities and charities such as Amnesty and Glitch UK are left to campaign for change. After a fortnight of news on self-harm, suicides and Katie Price taking a stand for her disabled son, it’s high time they responded seriously to the abuse perpetuated on their platforms. Otherwise, they risk putting off a generation of women, particularly minority women, from entering public life. All communities need some norms, values and standards to make them safe. Online ones are no exception.
• Kimberly McIntosh is a writer specialising in race and gender
