Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Led a Black Lives Matter Talk for the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry may have stepped away from royal life, but they maintain their roles as the president and vice president of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust.
The organization has been hosting regular conversations with young people about Black Lives Matter, injustice, and equal rights—and last week the Duke and Duchess of Sussex participated in the discussion. According to the QCT website, the royals were joined by Chrisann Jarrett, QCT trustee and cofounder and co-CEO of We Belong; Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas; Mike Omoniyi, founder and CEO of the Common Sense Network; and Abdullahi Alim, who leads the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers network of emerging young leaders in Africa and the Middle East.
“You are the next generation of leadership which this world so desperately needs as it goes through this healing process,” Prince Harry said. “We can’t deny or ignore the fact that all of us have been educated to see the world differently. However, once you start to realize that there is that bias there, then you need to acknowledge it, you need to do the work to become more aware…so that you can help stand up for something that is so wrong and should not be acceptable in our society today.”
“It’s not just in the big moments; it’s in the quiet moments where racism and unconscious bias lies and thrives,” Markle added. “It makes it confusing for a lot of people to understand the role that they play in that, both passively and actively.”
“We’re going to have to be a little uncomfortable right now, because it’s only in pushing through that discomfort that we get to the other side of this and find the place where a high tide raises all ships,” she continued. “Equality does not put anyone on the back foot, it puts us all on the same footing, which is a fundamental human right.”
This isn’t the first time Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have spoken out about racial issues in recent months, following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among so many others, at the hands of police.
In early June the duchess gave a powerful speech to graduating seniors at her former high school in Los Angeles. “For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been planning on saying a few words to you for your graduation, and as we all have seen over the past few weeks, what is happening in our country and in our state and in our hometown of L.A. has been absolutely devastating,” Markle said. “And I wasn’t sure what I could say to you. I wanted to say the right thing. And I was really nervous that I wouldn’t, or that it would get picked apart, and I realized: The only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.
“Because George Floyd’s life mattered, and Breonna Taylor’s life mattered, and Philando Castile’s life mattered, and Tamir Rice’s life mattered, and so did so many other people whose names we know and whose names we don’t know. Stephon Clark. His life mattered,” she continued. “The first thing I want to say to you is that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you have to grow up in a world where this is still present.”
And Prince Harry recently spoke about the Black Lives Matter movement in a speech during the Diana Awards, named for his late mother. “I too am sorry—sorry that we haven’t got the world to a place you deserve it to be,” he said. “Institutional racism has no place in our societies, yet it is still endemic. Unconscious bias must be acknowledged without blame to create a better world for all of you.”
Originally Appeared on Glamour
