Prince Harry is taking part in a new BBC documentary examining race relations in Britain alongside Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who has spent more than three decades campaigning against racism following the murder of her son, Stephen Lawrence.
The exact extent of Harry’s involvement has not yet been revealed, and there is currently no announced broadcast date. HELLO! reports that Baroness Lawrence asked Harry to take part and that he was “happy to” support her.
Stephen Lawrence was 18 when he was murdered in a racist attack in south-east London in 1993. The failures in the investigation led to the public inquiry headed by Sir William Macpherson, whose landmark 1999 report concluded that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist.
More than three decades later, Baroness Lawrence is still having to talk about race in Britain. And that alone tells us something.
Racism Is Also About Who Gets Believed and How They Are Portrayed
A documentary like this matters because racism does not only appear in its most obvious forms. It also shows up in how institutions with enormous cultural power describe, doubt, scrutinise and frame people of colour.
We have seen reporters subject Black public figures to language and standards that would look extraordinary if they applied them elsewhere. We wrote about this earlier this year when newspapers reported Associated Newspapers’ lawyers describing Baroness Lawrence as a “trophy claimant”, a remarkably patronising characterisation of a woman whose decades-long fight for justice has defined her public life.
Meghan Sussex has faced another version of the same problem, with relatively ordinary behaviour repeatedly turned into stories about her attitude, character and motives.
That is why conversations about race cannot stop at openly racist abuse. They also have to examine the assumptions beneath reporting that supposedly commands respect: whom reporters treat as credible, whom they label difficult, whom they grant sympathy, and whom they cast as the problem in their own story.
Harry and Baroness Lawrence Already Have History
Harry and Baroness Lawrence also know one another through their long-running legal battle against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.
Earlier this year, Lawrence, Harry, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost Law and Sir Simon Hughes lost their case against the publisher. In July, Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed their claims after finding that they had not proved their specific allegations of unlawful information gathering. Associated Newspapers had denied the allegations throughout.
Harry and Baroness Lawrence publicly rejected the judgment, describing the outcome as a “complete and obvious whitewash”, which together makes clear that the relationship did not end with the judgment.
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Britain Still Has Plenty to Talk About
There is no shortage of material for this documentary. Baroness Lawrence has spent decades asking Britain to confront racism in policing, public institutions and wider society. Harry has also repeatedly spoken about race and the treatment of Meghan by sections of the press.
But this should not become another story about whether Harry is sufficiently qualified to discuss racism. Baroness Lawrence asked him to participate.
The more important issue is the conversation itself: how racism operates in modern Britain, how institutions respond when challenged and how the media can reinforce stereotypes even while insisting that race has nothing to do with the story.
Good on Baroness Lawrence for continuing to force that discussion into public view. And good on Harry for showing up when she asked.
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In semi-modern societies, the notion still prevails that people can be divided into different groups on the basis of their origins and ‘biology’ – for example, by ‘race’ and ‘gender’.
These categorisations are based on a history of superiority and inferiority that is deeply rooted in the power structures and fears of cultures; they assume that these characteristics comprise a set of immutable traits. They reinforce this belief.
Each of these individuals is assigned their place, and is expected to remain there. What that place is is determined by those who have appropriated power and public resources within a culture or society.
Superiority arises from the accumulation of power and possessions – regardless of how these were acquired. Certain values and laws apply only within the dominant group and exclusively to that group. Inferiority, on the other hand, stems from what is regarded as less valuable in that society, or from what entrenches the subjugation and deprivation of large groups.
All this and more describes racism and misogyny – structurally. Without these terms being explicitly used.