Much like the election of Zero, the Post-Racial Royal Wedding™ has become a Rorschach Test upon which angry progressives can project their Id, with all its fears and desires:
Among the group of black women with whom I watched the ceremony early Saturday morning in New Jersey, she was a source of pride. Yet out of a sense of sisterly protection, we were also worried about her as she sat there alone, without siblings or friends…
She was alone in her Resistance. She’s just like Rosa Parks!
As a noted feminist, Ms. Markle has been far more explicit about her commitment to workplace gender equality, the #MeToo movement and championing the rights of girls. Yet, in this age of Black Lives Matter, she is rarely on record for expressing similar remarks about racial justice or delving into the richness of her African-American heritage.
On Saturday, she clapped back. Through a series of thoughtfully curated and expertly executed performances, the world came to see Ms. Markle as she wants to be seen and, arguably, has always seen herself. As a woman who embraces blackness as forthrightly and easily as she wears a Givenchy wedding dress and Queen Mary’s diamond tiara.
Much has already been made of Bishop Michael Bruce Curry, the first African-American head of the Episcopal Church, who embraced the soaring rhetoric and improvisational splendor of the African-American sermonic tradition in his invocation. And the 19-year-old cello soloist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the first black musician to win the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year Award in its 40-year history, gave a spellbinding, virtuoso performance that gently reminded us of the long history and thriving present of black classical musicians.
Long history? Thriving present?
In the end, the most significant celebration of racial and gender identity was completely unscripted. As the newlyweds left Windsor Castle, my friends and I rejoiced at another sound we immediately recognized: Interspersed among the crowd’s gleeful cheers, there was a cacophony of black women offering up another song — ululations recognized as congratulatory greetings throughout the African diaspora — to welcome Ms. Markle and her new husband home.
And in the famously reserved country of England, what is more quintessentially British than ululations?
