An open letter to the highly probably soon to be ex Duke
& Duchess of Sussex.
Harry, Megan, I wish to sincerely apologize for caring about
you. Now, to be clear, I care a lot more
for those people who are biologically and legally related to me than I do
you. I also care a lot more about the
friends I know versus you two-de facto strangers to me. Furthermore, my top
priory is trying to get through my day at work as opposed to trying to find out
what alleged diva-esque behavior either one of you may be engaging in.
And yet, there is some secret Anglophile part of me that
can’t resist clicking on a link revealing the latest gossip in the war of the
Wales against the Sussexes.
I can’t even understand why I want to follow you two
anyway? If, as William Faulkner
famously said “The past is never dead, it isn’t even past” then I should be
holding you Duke Sussex personally accountable for the Irish starvation caused
by your great, great, great, great Grandma Vicki in the 1840s the way my Irish
forbearers did. It only seems fair
since I feel the British press are holding your wife responsible for the
abdication of your great, great uncle Edward VIII and the madness of great,
great, great, great, great grandpa Georgie III. Also, Duchess Sussex, a former
thespian such as yourself should have read/acted in British playwright George
Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. A work which
illustrates how white hoity toity English phonetics professor Henry Higgins has
no qualms looking down and mistreating his fellow white English beggar woman citizen
Eliza Doolittle merely because she doesn’t know you’re supposed to pronounce
the “H” in “herb”. So, what chance does
a biracial divorced mid 30’s American woman have in the uber upper crust of
British society? Not to mention the
British tabloid media label of “Diva” is a probably a misunderstanding of the
innate superiority attitude every American has been raised to have since the 1980's
and we have the goods to back it up. (As proof I offer the formerly British now
American YouTube sensation Lawrence Brown who goes in depth the differences
between Brittan and America https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Lost+in+the+ponf
).
Now, full disclosure for me.
I studied journalism in college in the early 1990’s. I learned all about the Who, What, Where,
When, Why & How’s of Journalism. And
I know that you two do not fit what was once considered to be respectable
news. You do not hold any major
political power. You’re not in charge of
a massive major multi-billion dollar industry.
Heck Duke Sussex, even if you went from Spare to King Henry IX as a mere
figurehead king of England you’d have to just say “Pip, pip hurrah” if the
British Parliament approved a nuclear bomb being dropped on downtown
London.
And yet why am I taking the time out to watch that Netflix documentary,
the 60 minutes interview and even watching the TMI interview you gave with
Stephen Colbert online as though ever word that comes out of your mouth is a
honey sweetened piece of truth gold that I can’t live without? Why am I pondering spending $18 on the Kindle
version of the book you probably paid some ghost writer to write on your behalf
when I still haven’t gotten around to reading much more important pieces of British
literature like the physical Lord of the Rings books that I got from my
uncle for free 20 years ago? Why am I wanting to care about you and your
troubles?
I know the behavior I am exhibiting is as old as time
itself. In the days of Camelot, I’m
pretty sure the cobbler who after he got done wailing from nailing his thumb
was eager to track down the town crier to inquire about that bold cavalier
Queen Guinevere was seen cavorting with the night before. Still, why does the thought “Well at least I
don’t have 1,000 paparazzi trying to get a photograph of me in my underwear”
provide a temporary salve to the ennui and stress brought on by my job and my
life? And why are there so many people deep down like me (and I’m brave enough
to admit it) wanting to partake in the shallow pleasure of schadenfreude
voyeurism?
Maybe it’s because someone a lot smarter than me figured out
schadenfreude voyeurism could be a useful tool in the art of distraction. Duke Sussex, you compared the British media
scene to a dragon, and I feel guilty for feeding that dragon. Now the two dragons that I know of- Smaug
from “The Hobbit” and Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty”, primarily protected a valuable treasure. In the case of The Hobbit’s Smaug, he
protected a vast pile of gold and other material things. In the case of Sleeping Beauty, it was to
ensure Maleficent's evil curse would endure.
So, what is the British media dragon protecting or preventing to be seen? Maybe it’s the fact that one in three kids
live in poverty in Great Brittan[i]
and the average British citizen has lost an average of £1,000($1250)[ii]
from their paycheck over the last five years.
Maybe it’s telling the public if they don’t want any more 40◦ C
(104◦
F) summer days they have to give up a £6.3($7.88)[iii] billion
income stream from the British oil industry and submit themselves to major
lifestyle changes. Maybe it’s the
ongoing inflation above 10% [iv]which
won’t be going down anytime soon thanks to the Brexit decision made years ago
that is causing Scotland to resurrect the spirit of William Wallace. Maybe those in power figure it’s better to
spend £345[v] ($431.24)
million in taxpayer money on the British equivalent of “Keeping up with the
Kardashians” rather than tackle and face the problems that nobody deep down
wants to face.
Because I do care about the troubles you are facing due to
this media firestorm. Because even if
every nasty thing written about you two were true (I know it’s not but even
hypothetically it was) no one should endure the harassment you two have endured
just because you weren’t willing to follow some perceived stereotype of what a
royal should be. I am keeping you in my
prayers and trying my best to not click on the latest criticism because reading
those nasty types of stories is causing that dragon to grow. Besides, Duke Sussex, you’re a prince. You know what you are supposed to do with
dragons.
And – Wow, look at the way Quora just dissed Harry & his
late Mom in the same paragraph.
Did I just hear a dragon roar?
Uh, sorry?
[i] https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures#:~:text=There%20were%203.9%20million%20children%20living%20in%20poverty,or%20eight%20in%20a%20classroom%20of%2030.%202
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