Most immigrants to the UK are not welcomed like she is.
Tomorrow, Prince Harry and his American fiancée, Meghan Markle, will get married, which you likely already know if you are active on any bit of social media or watch the news.
But here’s a piece of news you didn’t know, nor would ever have any reason to know: The day after tomorrow I leave my husband — a British citizen like Harry — and go to India, just so I can apply for a spouse visa that will allow us, two married people, to live in the UK for two and a half years (because that’s how long you can last on a spouse visa here). Here’s something even weirder: I am already in the UK — legally — on a marriage visitor visa that I got earlier this year when I got married to the love of my life in a small coastal town here. Now, you’d think that if you were already in a country, legally, and you had a visa that was active for a while, you could apply to switch to a longer visa, right?
No.
Not if you are an immigrant in the UK. Especially not if you come from a country with a weaker economy that cannot compete with the might of the British Pound. Because let me tell you something else: The spouse visa costs a little over £1,600. That’s $2,160. And there’s an NHS health fee that’s another $850 or so. And you know the absolute best part? You cannot get a refund on that fee if your application is rejected.
TL;DR: If you a working-class person, or even a middle-class person, really, and you are in the same position as Harry and Meghan, you don’t really get a proper wedding, or a honeymoon, because you are already crowdsourcing, scrounging and begging to raise the fee for a one-time visa application. And if you are rejected, you cry and cry and cry, pick yourself up, and do every job you can until you have raised enough money for a second application.
So forgive me if I am a little skeptical when well-meaning white people, and yes, sometimes even people of color, tell me how the Windsor family’s acceptance of a biracial American woman is the very pinnacle of progress and anti-racist sentiment on the part of British monarchy.
First of all, please stop talking about Meghan Markle as if she is a regular person with regular vulnerabilities that haunt us women of color. For one thing, she is a pale person (as am I) and we ALWAYS have to take less shit than darker women. She is also skinny and incredibly attractive by conventional standards of beauty. Finally, she has been a celebrity in her homeland — she has money, influence, popularity, and privileges that come with that. Yes, she may be a woman of color, but her circumstances are so exceptional that I cannot find myself in her shoes even in my most delusional fantasy. This is not an ad hominem attack on her. I quite like and admire some of the things she has said in the past. It is simply that her experiences, at their worst, are better than the experiences of most WoC.
And yet, this lack of identification with her does not stop me from being completely outraged when people talk about how she gives us women of color “hope.” What hope? Of marrying into a family with worse issues than everyone else’s families put together? Of living under your in-laws’ approval and permission for everything for the rest of your life? Of never getting to be yourself in public, for a moment? Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.
But more importantly, this whole “hope” narrative reinforces the idea that we, women of color, can only redeem ourselves by the romantic validation of a white man. If that in itself isn’t toxic enough, Harry being a prince also draws from the older, more universal, equally toxic narrative of marrying up into the heteropatriarchy as a fairytale — the “prince” being a happy shorthand for a larval patriarch to be domesticated before he becomes a full-blown king and father-figure.
But perhaps the hardest thing about watching the Royal Wedding unfold is hearing people talk about how progressive the monarchy has become, and how they are above racism and xenophobia and petty nationalism.
I am here to tell you, without a single shred of doubt, that they are not.
But more importantly, this whole ‘hope’ narrative reinforces the idea that we, women of color, can only redeem ourselves by the romantic validation of a white man.
I can say that with such confidence because the Home Office — yes, that same Home Office with the Kafkaesque visa regulations and punishing application fees and “go home” vans — is a ministerial department of Her Majesty’s Government, ultimately headed by the Queen. The Queen is not the executive head of state and I know she has very limited powers in actually implementing any changes. But has anyone ever heard her or any other member of the royal family express any support for immigrants? No. (Correct me if I am wrong. I’d love to be corrected.) Indeed, royal protocol forbids the royal family from talking about “politics” — which translates into them never taking a stand on the human rights issues that affect the country every day.
On a more theoretical level, is it ever possible to ask for an anti-racist utopia (a utopia, ultimately, of equity) to arise from a discourse of exceptionalism so naked as a monarchy? Our fascination with them lies in the myth that they are different from us, purer, more deserving of everything, mightier. And occasionally, someone like Prince Philip or Meghan Markle or Princess Diana is welcomed in — and we go wild because hey, look, a “commoner” or a foreigner can make it!
Only if they are adopted by Lord Mountbatten or are incredibly beautiful and a celebrity, though.
Other strangers have not fared so well. The present monarch’s father became King only because his older brother married Wallis Simpson — whose national and marital position was exactly the same as Meghan Markle. And he was forced to abdicate. Now, given the fact that both Wallis and her husband were probably Nazi sympathizers, I am not terribly sympathetic to their plight. But I do believe they suffered for the wrong reasons.
We are now in a different century from that time, and I certainly hope that this wedding allows the Windsor family to pause and become more understanding of their enormous privilege, because they will have someone with experiences of alienation and racist prejudice as a family member. The Windrush scandal and the Royal Wedding are happening at the same time, and they form a moment that can allow the British government (and specifically the Home Office) some back-pedaling on their racism should they choose to heed it. I am not hopeful though.
I certainly hope that this wedding allows the Windsor family to pause and become more understanding of their enormous privilege.
Meanwhile, I will be hugging my husband a little tighter and making him his favorite food before I leave our new home and our precious married life that we managed to enjoy together for only three weeks. I may be back in a couple of weeks, or months, or whenever it is that I finally get a visa.
Happy wedding, lovebirds
I am sure there will no spouse visa for you two, but a breathless Tier-1 exception. And I am sure there will be no long queue at Heathrow where the border official asks you invasive questions about your personal life. Oh, and finally, I am sure you will never have to leave your own new home and your beloved because you have been kicked out by the country you are living in.
Edited.
@MattDeBaritone.
