Meghan Markle's show critics don't think Black girls can be princesses

Black women aren't allowed to be soft we're only supposed to serve.

I had no intention of watching Netflix’s new show that follows Meghan Markle — or Mrs. Sussex if you’re Mindy [Kaling] — and her post Brexit life. When it comes to Meghan, I’m quite indifferent about her. I feel no disdain toward her, and I’m certainly no Stan. I’ll admit I feel a connection to her as a Black woman, and a fellow Northwestern University graduate (Go Cats!). I’m also deeply aware of her ability to wear her Blackness like a cardigan she can delicately place over her shoulders when it gets chilly as a white-passing biracial woman. But I’ve always been fascinated by how much people seem to simply despise her. Just outright hate her.

With Hate, Meghan

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the former Suits actress’ series premiered this week on Netflix, after shifting its initial launch date due to the Los Angeles wildfires. The show is part of a major, multi-year deal she and hubby Prince Harry inked between their production company and the streamer.

I’ve been fascinated by the general sentiment that not only is the series a snooze, but this persistent question of purpose and relatability. I’ve repeatedly seen questions about how viewers are expected to see themselves in the Duchess who is hosting fancy fetes with fresh farm-to-table menus, or baking delicious cakes that require pricey organic eggs. How on Earth — and in this economy — are we supposed to watch this woman waltz through her luscious garden, and cook on her aesthetically pleasing Le Creuset pots, cut fresh flowers and make homemade candles?

We all know 2025 came in hot, so there’s not much these days that can surprise me. But my mind is boggled by our ability to elect a fraud with gold toilets in his home to the highest office in the land, yet simultaneously be outraged about lack of relatability. For some reason we enjoy watching Kim Kardashian eat a salad, but we can’t watch Meghan make one?

The truth is, we don’t relate to it because we don’t believe it’s possible. Black princesses don’t exist. We don’t want to watch Black women live a life of ease in an expensive and aesthetically pleasing home. Black women can’t cut fresh flowers and place them in a fancy vase. We can’t make rainbow fruit treys for our children, or enjoy tender kisses on our foreheads from our spouses.

More notably, Black women aren’t allowed to have access to luxury. And not just the luxury of beautiful, quality items. We aren’t allowed the luxury of time. We aren’t allowed to have the time to spend making our homes beautiful; to step away from caring for our kids or hire help. God forbid we have the luxury to not need to work.

Black women don’t exist in softness. We only exist in service. White people don’t want to watch a Black woman live a life of ease. They just want her to arrange theirs.

Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Julia Childs and countless other white women have become millionaires doing the exact thing Meghan does in her show. Mormon white women with no jobs have commanded the attention of millions of viewers. But the Duchess, as one writer said in a review for The Cut, “can’t seem to decide whether [she] is an expert teaching friends new tricks or a student learning dutifully from professional chefs.” If that’s not the most relatable thing I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is. Aren’t we all somewhere between sensei and student on something in our lives?

But Meghan isn’t serving white people in a way they expect Black women to. As one writer for the Slate put it, the British people have wronged us by stripping her of a job she was much better suited for where all she had to do was “make speeches, give money and shake hands.”

Black girls can’t be princesses. Hell — even poor Tiana was only a princess for 10 minutes in Disney’s Princess and the Frog and she’s never gotten the sequel treatment other princesses have gotten.

Black women have been the homemakers and the child rearers for centuries. And honestly, I’d much rather learn from them than any white woman.

A quick word on another Megan…

Watching Hannah Berner interview Megan Thee Stallion on the Vanity Fair after party red carpet was as cringe as everyone has already said. White women have no idea what to do with Black women in any position of influence or power, so they resort to crying and centering themselves. But beyond that, I implore media companies to PLEASE HIRE TRAINED JOURNALISTS. Influencers cannot do this job — and yes, this is a job. There are highly-skilled veteran entertainment journalists waiting for an opportunity, and it irks me no end to watch nonsense like this. But if publishers simply want fluff in exchange for impactful storytelling, well in the words of Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds: “Go do that.”