UVA’s history is not unusual. Harvard, Georgetown, and Brown University are just a few of the many universities built from the ground up by slaves. And here in the UK, where its history of slave ownership has been largely glossed over, the untold stories of Black and brown bodies behind the gleaming White narrative continue to haunt.
As I write, the UK is in uproar over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s surprise announcement to retool their role within the royal family into something more progressive. Controversially, they told the world on their own terms, when they were ready, without approval from the crown. In a way, the outpouring of rage—which tellingly has overshadowed far more troubling stories, including Prince Andrew’s ties to child sex trafficking; a brewing war with Iran; catastrophic climate crisis–induced bushfires in Australia; and Brexit—has felt just as racially loaded as the rallies in Charlottesville, even if not spelled out as explicitly.
The media has called it Megxit, a term that wholly orients the controversy around Meghan, even though the decision to step back was surely a joint one between husband and wife (Prince Harry expressed desires to leave his royal duties as far back as 2007). And at the heart of the fury, and surely the couple’s reason for wanting to step back from their roles as senior royals in general: Meghan’s Blackness. Most seem dead set against acknowledging or talking plainly about, as George Orwell once put it, “the deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income.” That source, of course, would be empire, which is inextricably linked to, among other things, the slave trade. Race is arguably the biggest talking point in the story of Harry and Meghan’s marriage—and yet few in England seem equipped or willing to talk about it.
Regardless, what’s so compelling about Meghan’s story is her refusal to occupy anyone’s expectation of what Blackness is or what Black womanhood should mean. And she doesn’t seem to have any desire to change the opinions of the British public or royal family about her—even though with tabloid headlines claiming she’s “(Almost) Straight Outta Compton” and a royal relative daring to wear a blackamoor brooch to her first family meet and greet, we know they have more than a few such opinions. Much has been made of Meghan’s rumored refusal to be small, fall in line, quiet down, and defer to the family. Regardless of her motives, her actions are a powerful thing for young Black women to see.
In a viral listicle titled “A List Of Sh*t Black Women Ain’t Dealing With In 20/20,” writer Hannah Drake summed up the mood of many: “Meet the Black woman behind? Nope! Meet the Black woman first! Period!”
While recounting her experience with a racial census in an article she wrote for ELLE (full disclosure: it was a piece that I edited), Meghan talked about wanting to draw her own box rather than allow anyone to define her identity. She has drawn hers. And most potently, she has dared to do so within an institution as old and rigid as the British monarchy. The world got mad. She took a step back. And she moved elsewhere to create a safe space for her family. Let them figure it out.
The ghost of Sally Hemings lives in all corners. She’s always there, in both the conspiratorial silences and the loud debates. We see her, whether the rest of the world is willing to acknowledge her and come to terms with the legacy of racial oppression, or not. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized the best thing I can do to honor her legacy in my own life is let go of any compulsion to explain my humanity to anyone who doesn’t recognize or value it. I recognize it. I value it. That’s what matters most. And the beauty of this moment in history, as Black women rise to the fore, is this overall rejection of personas placed upon us.
I’ve found myself thinking about Sally a lot since that August morning in 2017. Wondering what she looked like. How her voice sounded. What she would think of this moment we all live in. What she would tell us. No matter how far across the world I drop anchor, the distance doesn’t change the reality that I am a product of her, as are all daughters and sons of Virginia. And of America. And yes, of England and beyond. And I spread out, across the Atlantic and back again, arms wide, claiming room for myself as my own as I go.
Chapter 7
Upon Reflection
by Funmi Fetto
Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin, to such extent that you bleach to get like the White man? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? . . . You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.
—MALCOLM X
There is a box. It is tea stained and tattered because it has existed and traveled for a few decades. The collation of its contents began sometime in the 1970s when it lived under a bed in a small postwar flat close to the center of London. Soon afterward it made its way to a West African town, and years later it found its way back to London. Today it is living somewhere in a newly built family house on the outskirts of London.
Inside the box are photographs. A mix of dog-eared black-and-white and colored photographs that mark moments big and small in the life of one African family. There are grainy images from a London wedding in the late sixties or seventies with Black people wearing perfectly coiffured Afros, bell bottoms, miniskirts, and colored platform shoes. There are pictures of a good-looking Black couple sitting on a sofa in their flat with a backdrop of a mustard print psychedelic wallpaper. The majority of the images, however, are of children. Happy children. One is a mischievous-looking, wide-eyed, Black-skinned girl. There’s one where she is wearing a peachy pink printed summer dress in front of the family car, a baby blue Volkswagen Beetle, her Afro hair maneuvered into bulbous twists, her smile beaming into the camera. Another sees her in a playground, carefree, oblivious to the camera, her apple cheeks and sparkly eyes filled with glee. At her fifth birthday party she stands confidently in front of a three-tiered, fully iced cake wearing an equally elaborate pale green printed Victoriana dress, her face freshly shined, Afro hair pinned into a puffy halo. This happy girl welcomed the camera fearlessly. She was unaware of the concept and ideals of beauty—what these were, who dictated the terms, and who had the means and the power to flourish within them. She was blissfully unaware of what she looked like, how the world viewed her, and where her place was in what the world deemed beautiful. She had no idea her nose was flat and wide and a future source of derision and shame in a world where small, buttoned, and delicate equivalents are revered. She had no idea her full lips would be mocked but later desired—only on Whiter skin. She had no idea the kink in her hair would draw curiosity and vitriol in equal measure. She had no idea she was Black and that her Blackness would be a barrier to fitting in to the social constructs of beauty. She had no idea that there would come a time that what was reflected back at her in the mirror and in photographs would cause her to compare and contrast herself with what the world kept telling her was beautiful. And that she would never, could never, live up to it. But she soon found out. And then she stopped taking photographs. That girl was me.
There are many lies we tell ourselves. I don’t think we do it because we are pathological fabricators incapable of truth. There is a part of us that we shut down because the alternative—whether superficial or serious or something less specific—means confronting something uncomfortable. So we tell ourselves lies. The longer we tell ourselves these fables—the more we recount the stories to ourselves and everyone else—the more we believe them to be true. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The box is a reminder of this. For as long as I can remember, I have been saying that I have always hated taking pictures, that the camera has always made me nervous, that the brilliance of a flash and the unmistakable click make my stomach churn and my heart still as I contemplate the image I will be presented with. But that’s not true. The contents of the box prove otherwise.