Prince Charles Saw It Coming. And I Binge Watched It Happening With Pride
Tickled me listening to all the TV talking heads discuss how “shocked” the royal family was about that amazing sermon, the gospel choir and even that delightful 18-year-old Black cellist.
They were so wrong.
I covered an evening of Prince Charles’ visit to Chicago many, many years ago when he was still the world’s most eligible bachelor, gallivanting all over the world with hot young things on his arm. Or…all over him, actually…
Oh yes, he was quite the bon vivant back then. Even willing to “shake a tail feather” when given the chance, usually to some form of “Black” music.
He was also far more forward thinking than some wanted him to be even then. His speech at one glittery Chicago event proved that to me once and for all, as he raised eyebrows and temperatures with little “not so well veiled” jabs at the society folk who had gathered to greet him.
One of my favorites was aimed at a dignitary whose wife had gushed that she was “part British.”
“I was delighted to discover that the wife of one of our guests is also British. Or that part of her is,” he quipped. “I will not ask which part…”
The rest of the speech could’ve been inserted seamlessly, word for word, into a Monty Python sketch.
I was delighted. Some guests were scandalized.
Not long after, he said something far more serious and, for some, far more scandalous. He told the British press that the days of blond, blue-eyed “English roses” were numbered, intimating, again not so subtly, that it was about damned time.
Yes. He heralded that coming of “multiculturalism” and the browning of Britain not with fear but with enthusiasm. And started The Prince’s Trust and other charities like Mosaic in the hope of reaching out to the newest British citizens of color and from other cultures in a meaningful way.
Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. Aside from his own support, he has raised billions for these and similar charities.
So I was nothing like shocked to see him dive whole-heartedly into the fray this weekend, to walk his new, biracial daughter-in-law down the aisle. Or to see him taking such care of her mother, Doria, the sole blood relative of the bride in attendance.
The royals may not all have been as open-minded about all this. But I’d wager that very few of them were actually shocked.
Charles warned them about this years ago. And now, they’ve got the new Duchess of Sussex to prove just how right he was.
Deal with it, people.
