Professor Tanya Hernández, author of Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination, was quoted in a CNN article about the birth of the son of Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the implications public reaction to the baby could have on perpetuating myths about racial progress.
Here’s why we should be cautious. The royal baby watch has already resurrected some of the most dangerous stereotypes about race. And in many cases, the commentators who are reinforcing these stereotypes are totally unaware of the damage.
…“She was raised by her mother to embrace her blackness in a world that otherwise denigrates any connection to blackness,” says Tanya Kateri Hernandez, author of “Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination.”
And that pride was reflected in the way she organized her wedding, Hernandez says.
She invited the first black presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church to deliver a sermon, along with a black choir. This was an Anglican affair punctuated by some unapologetic blackness: the exuberance of traditional black preaching backed up by some down-home gospel music.
“She was signaling to a wider world that yes, she was going to be a part of this royal family but she wasn’t leaving her own family, and mother, behind,” Hernandez says.