I knew Meghan Markle had a knot in her stomach as she began her interview with Oprah.
I felt it in my own stomach–the ghost of a long-ago past when I was a favorite topic of derision in the media. I watched as her hands cradled her stomach, rested gently on the child growing inside her, which pregnant women often do, but I knew she was also cradling her fears.
There is no level playing field for speaking your truth when you are a public figure embroiled in a family dispute (let alone as a Black woman talking about racism within a white royal family, as Meghan was). You’re always going to be trudging uphill, trying to balance the weight of what you shouldn’t say with the truths you want people to know.
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I had it easier in the '80s because there was no social media then. I was excoriated for speaking at anti-nuclear rallies in defiance of my father’s policies, and later writing a book that revealed in detail my family’s turmoil and tensions. But my nightmare was newsstands and people on television and radio, not an entire world of nastiness as close as my computer screen.
Because my father was president, our family drama traveled across the seas. A celebrity in the UK said I was an argument for abortion. My parents and I weren’t speaking for much of that time; sadly, we had become accustomed to speaking at each other through the press. In some ways, that is apparently what’s going on in the Royal Family at the moment. Meghan and Harry have each other, but still, there is a loneliness to this kind of battle. It closes in on you sometimes.
For anyone who sees fit to criticize Meghan and Harry for choosing to tell their truth, I would like to suggest that you have no idea what it feels like to be vilified publicly. You have no idea how corrosive the helplessness is. There is nowhere you can go to escape the opinions, the criticism, and the threats from hordes of people who you will never meet. I remember looking at a map and wondering where I could go to find respite, to get away from the hatred coming my way on a daily basis. I realized that, unless I wanted to hide out in a jungle somewhere, there was really no escape.
Think about that if you are forming opinions, particularly of Meghan Markle, who fell in love with a prince only to find herself portrayed as a shrew. Think about the helplessness, and the whispers of history as she had to endure racist comments. Think about the courage it took to say, “I’m not going to be silent. If the world is going to talk about me, I’m going to talk back and say what really happened.”
My situation was different in that I chose to speak out stridently against my father’s politics, and I have for decades expressed my regrets for that choice. Years ago, I wrote that I put myself on the front lines and the media obligingly gunned me down. But even though I take responsibility for my actions, the barrage of criticism left a wound that never completely heals. It took me decades to do an interview without feeling nauseated from fear.
Meghan and Harry will never get over their experience with world-wide vilification. But they will get through it. They will come out on the other side with more wisdom, some of it born of sadness. They will have more appreciation for the people who offered them understanding and compassion, and they’ll have a keener sense of how important boundaries are.
The best that everyone else can do is realize they have no idea what it’s like to walk in their shoes, and they never will.
