Meghan Says She Was Not Treated as a 'Black Woman' Until Harry Relationship

Meghan Markle has said she only "started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman" after dating Prince Harry.

The Duchess of Sussex discussed being biracial with Mariah Carey on her Archetypes podcast for Spotify and said "things really shifted" after she became a part of royal life.

Meghan told Carey: "I think for us it's so different because we're light-skinned. You're not treated as a black woman, you're not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.

"If there's any time in my life that it's been more focused on my race it's only once I started dating my husband.

"Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman because up until then I had been treated like a mixed women. And things really shifted."

Carey replied: "That's an interesting thing—a mixed woman. Because I always thought it should be okay to say I'm mixed but people want you to choose."

It comes a day after an interview in which Meghan suggested she did not want to allow the British press to photograph her children due to fear of racism.

She said: "Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child? You tell me how that makes sense and then I'll play that game."

There is no publicly known incident in which a journalist for a mainstream media organization has racially abused Archie and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor. However, there have been racism scandals involving the British press.

Among them, days after Meghan and Harry's relationship was first revealed Mail Online ran a story headlined: "EXCLUSIVE: Harry's girl is (almost) straight outta Compton: Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed - so will he be dropping by for tea?"

Another article by Rachel Johnson, the current British Prime Minister's sister, described how Meghan was bringing "exotic" D.N.A. into the royal family.

She wrote: "If there is issue from her alleged union with Prince Harry, the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA.

"Miss Markle's mother is a dreadlocked African-American lady from the wrong side of the tracks who lives in LA, and even the sourest spinster has to admit that the 35-year-old actress is extremely easy on the eye."

Prince Harry also suggested during their interview with Oprah Winfrey that racism in the media was a significant part of the couple's motivation for leaving the royal family.

The duke said: "It [racism] was a large part of it. I remember... Sentebale fundraiser... and one of the people at that dinner said to me, 'please don't do this with the media. They will destroy your life.'

"This person is friends with a lot of editors and like that. I said, 'sorry, elaborate, what do you mean by that?' So I knew.

"He said, 'please understand that the UK is very bigoted.' And I stopped and I said, 'the UK is not bigoted. The UK press is very bigoted, specifically the tabloids. Is that what you mean?' He goes, 'no, the UK is bigoted.'

"And I said, 'I completely disagree.' But unfortunately, if the source of the information is inherently corrupt or racist or biased, then that filters out to the rest of society."