In the 1967 film Guess who’s coming to dinner a white
woman brings her black fiancé Sidney Poitier to meet her parents Spencer Tracey
and Katherine Hepburn. They are shocked and initially Tracey opposes the
marriage. Poitier’s parents too are shocked and his father too initially opposes
the marriage. The film was powerful because it was one of the first positive
depictions of interracial marriage. Many members of the film’s audience would
have shared the doubts of both families and through the course of the film
would have had their prejudices tested and perhaps overcome. But the difference
between 1967 and now is that such doubts and prejudices could be expressed
without immediate condemnation and because of that both the cast and the
audience were able to move forward to a position of acceptance that love was more
important than race. Today I strongly suspect Guess who’s coming to dinner
would be itself condemned as racist.
When Prince Harry brought Meghan Markle to dinner it
is unlikely that his choice of bride met with universal approval in the Royal
household. In this the Royal family are no different from many families in both
the United States and the United Kingdom. If there is no prejudice in either
country about marriage between races why is it still the case that the majority
of marriages take place between members of the same race.
People in both the UK and the US tend to live in
communities where most people are like them and choose their friends and lovers
from these communities. If this is due to racism, then racism must be universal
otherwise all races would long since have merged. But in most countries of the
world nearly everyone looks like nearly everyone else. Only in a few western
societies like Britain and the US are there large communities of different
races. Yet we are continually condemned for our intolerance, while nobody says
anything about Japan, or Saudi Arabia or Nigeria which are barely multi-racial
at all.
Members of the Royal family may have privately had doubts
about Prince Harry’s choice of bride. Prince William expressed his, not because
of Meghan Markle’s race, but because he thought Harry had not known her long
and because he doubted that she would fit into the Royal family. It turns out
that he was right. Other members of the Royal family might have had similar doubts
to Spencer Tracey. I would be surprised if no one else in Britain had the same
doubts. We are no longer allowed to express doubts about interracial marriage
and so we carefully don’t. But 1967 is not so very long ago. A doubt that was
almost universal in 1967 is hardly likely to have ceased to exist. But now it
is hidden, unspeakable and so instead of being resolved by love in 1967 it
festers into condemnation and accusations of racism.
Why did both black and white people in 1967 think it might
not be a good idea for black and white people to get married. One reason is
that they knew and acknowledged what society was like. They would have been
concerned that the couple would face prejudice. They would have also been
concerned about the children of the marriage who might face prejudice too. It
would have been normal for Spencer Tracey to wonder about what a child might
look like, but it is monstrous for a member of the Royal family to do so. But in
fact, this thought will be universal for families in this situation, only today
we are not allowed to express them.
But despite whatever doubts may have entered the minds
of the Royal family, they did welcome Meghan into the Royal family as did the
British people. The Royal wedding between Harry and Meghan had only positive
comment. Whether people had doubts or not they overcame them and expressed
great enthusiasm for the couple.
When Harry and Meghan’s child Archie was born, the
Royal family were obviously delighted. The pictures of the Queen and Prince
Philip show delight at their great grandchild no less nor more than they
expressed delight at the birth of Prince William’s children. If there was any
prejudice in the Royal family, expressed perhaps by expressing a doubt in
private, that prejudice was overcome just like Spencer Tracey overcame his
initial prejudice so that he came to genuinely welcome the marriage.
We cannot ask people not to feel or think things that
might be prejudiced. Each of us feels prejudice because it is part of the human
condition. Which of us has never felt prejudice about nationality or race even
once? To suppose that we have never felt this way is to suppose that we are
without sin, because prejudice is a function of our education and our
experience. Have Prince Harry and Meghan Markle never once thought something
prejudicial about another person because of his nationality or his class or his
race? If so then they are to be ranked with the angels, perfect beings
incapable of sin.
All we can reasonably ask of people is that they do
their best to limit their prejudice and treat other people fairly and equally.
We cannot ask that they never say something dubious in private. None of us
would wish to be judged on a thoughtless private remark, because each of us has
made them.
If Edward VIII had tried to marry a black woman in the
1930s it would have been unacceptable both to the Royal family and British
society whether she had been married or not. A US presidential candidate with a
black wife would not have been elected in 1967. But the Royal family today
overcame whatever prejudices they might have had about Meghan Markle even
though she was divorced and there was almost nothing written or said at the time
of her wedding that was negative about her. Whatever prejudices people might
have felt or thought, they were overcome.
Meghan Markle was unhappy in the Royal family, but
there is no evidence that she was treated worse that Kate Middleton. Rather
while Kate fitted in Meghan did not. Perhaps this was simply a function of her
being an American actress. Perhaps she had mental health issues that required
medical treatment. Did she have treatment? Did she take pills for depression? We
don’t know.
In 1967 the task was to educate people to overcome
their prejudices not by condemning them, that would have been unlikely to work,
but rather by showing that good people can have prejudices but with good will
can overcome them. Today racism has become the unforgivable sin. Even the least
hint of it condemns a person no matter how good to the innermost circle of hell
with no chance of redemption no matter what good he has done otherwise. Worse
this unforgivable sin can only be committed by white people and the least
unverified word, the least accusation even, by a black person is enough to
condemn out of hand a King, a Queen a Prince, a Prime Minister or a President.
If the Royal Family knew in advance that admitting a
black woman into their family meant that any unguarded word would lead to
universal condemnation across the world, they would have been right to doubt
whether this move was wise. Who would want such a person staying to dinner
storing up whatever private remarks were made later to be used to condemn? It
is not prejudiced to wish such a guest never came to dinner at all.
