Meghan Markle talks about the ‘angry Black woman’ myth: ‘Find myself tiptoeing into a room’

In the latest episode of her podcast series ‘Archetypes‘, Meghan Markle spoke more about what it is like to be a Black woman, and how society perceives her. The Duchess of Sussex, who is the daughter of Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle, called out the “angry Black woman” stereotype during the podcast, which essentially deals with challenging the many stereotypes that women around the world have come to be associated with — especially women of colour.
Meghan, who was joined actor Issa Rae, said there is a difference between “being difficult and being “clear”. During the episode, Rae said when her friend called her “particular”, she took it as a compliment. To this, the duchess replied, “I’m particular… You’re allowed to set a boundary, you’re allowed to be clear. It does not make you demanding, it does not make you difficult. It makes you clear.”

Speaking about anger, Meghan asked Rae if, as a Black woman, she feels judged for showing the emotion, and whether she feels she is “allowed to be angry”.
“Absolutely not, because, I can’t lose my cool, I can’t do that especially as a Black woman, but also just even as a public figure now. People are looking for ways to justify their perception of you. That doesn’t mean I don’t get angry. That might mean that I will vent my frustrations to someone that I trust, get it out of my system and then go into fix mode,” the latter replied.

During the episode, titled ‘Upending the Angry Black Woman myth‘, Meghan also talked about “cowering and tiptoeing into a room”, because of a fear of being received negatively. “I also find myself cowering and tiptoeing into a room and — the thing I find most embarrassing — when you’re saying a sentence and the intonation goes up, like it’s a question. And you’re like, ‘Oh my God, stop, stop whispering and tiptoeing around it’.”

In a previous episode of the podcast, the 41-year-old had said her identity as a Black woman became “more focused” after she started dating her now-husband Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. She claimed people became fixated on her race and ethnic background ever since the news of her relationship with the son of King Charles and Princess Diana broke.
“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 woman. And things really shifted,” she said.
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