Soon after the news of the engagement between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle broke, my 5-year old daughter and I were in the store. I showed her the cover of the magazine. “Look!” I said. “That woman will be a princess.”
Princesses can be brown too!
Believe me, it’s not because I want her to aspire to that. I just wanted to inject some real-life colour into the fairytale narrative – since Tiana (The Princess and the Frog) and Moana didn’t seem to make much of a dent.
Our cashier piped up. “I would love to be a princess,” she said. “But my mom reminded me that there are no princes left.”
Cartoon frog wearing a crown.
Which princes do you mean?
It was a good day, and I was sharp. Without skipping a beat, I said. “Maybe not any white ones, but there are plenty of brown and Black ones that we don’t hear about in the news.” I saw the cashier next to her – a South Asian woman – smile.
It’s true.
The Royal Family is spoken about like they are it. But if you do some research, you’ll discover that there are many other royal families. They just don’t match the Western world’s fairytale photo-shoot requirements. Imagine: Royalty comes in all skin colours!
Challenge yourself:
So, I’m running a contest this week. I’m challenging my readers to post a name and a photo of non-UK royalty to my ASI Facebook page (please ‘like’ it while you’re there, if you are so inclined!).
I’ll enter everyone who posts into a draw for a 30-minute D&I Discovery Session with me. Deadline for submissions: Friday, December 15th at 9pmEST.
Looking forward to seeing who comes up.
See more.
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