Would a bride "of color" been considered appropriate for William?

[Boyo_Jim]

@SciFiSam

…This comes up so often from people I know aren’t avowed racists…

How many avowed racists do you know?

[YaraMateo]

@alphaboi867

There is a mechanism for bypassing the Queen’s consent. Any royal over the age of 25 can notify the Privy Council of their intentions in writting and if Parliament goes 12 months without objecting to the marriage it can go ahead regardless of what Her Majesty thinks of it. The Queen isn’t an idiot; if William went and did that it’d be the worst PR diaster for the monarchy since the Abdication. And if William was determined enought to do that he might just petion Parliament to remove him from the succesion (a constitutional crisis that would likely destroy the monarchy).

True, but the real question which does he want more. As seen by his father, some men would rather choose a bride they weren’t in love with than step out of the line.

[Little_Nemo]

I think some hypothetical “bride of color” isn’t enough to focus the issue clearly.

So let’s ask “Would Naomi Campbell have been considered appropriate for William?”

[Finagle]

Well, yes, a bride “of color” would have been considered appropriate for William, provided it was William of Orange.

[Giles]

@Finagle

Well, yes, a bride “of color” would have been considered appropriate for William, provided it was William of Orange.

So, a gay marriage would be fine. But would Lady Jane Grey not have been colourful enough?

[Lamia]

I wonder how the Queen and British public would feel about a non-white member of a foreign royal family. This came to mind because I know the Imperial House of Japan has a lot of princesses, including five or six currently in their 20s. Princess Akiko is only a few months older than Prince William and got her Ph.D. in the UK, so I can imagine a fairly plausible alternate world in which she and William (or Harry) met, fell in love, and wanted to get married.

IIRC anyone with a foreign title must give it up upon marriage into the British royal family, but this wouldn’t be an issue with a Japanese princess as post-WWII changes in laws relating to the official status of the Japanese Imperial family require princesses to give up their titles upon marriage anyway.

Anyway, I assume a Japanese or other foreign princess would be acceptable to the Queen and most members of the public as long as she converted to the CoE and wasn’t personally obnoxious. If the Queen refused to grant permission for the marriage then it would probably be considered very insulting to the princess’s family and home country.

[Dr.Drake]

@YaraMateo

They’re still a family, though. She is the queen, but she wouldn’t want to make her husband unhappy. This is a family issue. Not an issue of state. Think about it. This girl would have to spend the rest of her life surrounded by this people. I remember them saying this Christmas was the last Christmas she was allowed to spend with her family. Do you really think the queen would allow someone in who a prominent member of objected to? It’s not like a normal family where he could choose to never see them again.

Given Prince Philip’s age, “the rest of her life” seems a tad hyperbolic.

[Sunspace]

@spark240

His family aside, I assume that a substantial wedge of the British people would have found it unacceptable to have a future queen, and thus future heir, who “wasn’t British.”

Don’t let Angua hear you say that…

@spark240

Is Britain now in short supply of those?

Yes. Some of them left and became my grandparents.

@Little_Nemo

I think some hypothetical “bride of color” isn’t enough to focus the issue clearly.

So let’s ask “Would Naomi Campbell have been considered appropriate for William?”

Is Naomi Campbell British?

Personally, I think it would be cool to have a Royal-by-marriage of non-Germanic heritage. That sort of thing has worked out well for us with the Governor General in Canada…

[Kent_Clark]

@SciFiSam

But if she were born in Britain and at least one of her parents had lived here for a reasonably long time, only hardcore racists would have thought she wasn’t British.

I want to see her birth certificate. The REAL birth certificate, not some lame short-form thing rubber-stamped by a clerk!

[Shmendrik]

@Sunspace

Is Naomi Campbell British?

Yes. She’s also 40, and has a criminal record. Somehow I don’t think her skin colour is the biggest problem.

[alphaboi867]

@YaraMateo

True, but the real question which does he want more. As seen by his father, some men would rather choose a bride they weren’t in love with than step out of the line.

I really don’t see William (or Harry for that matter) following his father’s example of rejecting his true love in favour of marrying for duty. He’s seen how that turned out up close.

[dangermom]

It’s not unprecedented. The younger prince of Denmark married an Asian girl(the first time around; both are now remarried). Although I noticed quite a lot of overt racism–especially towards Asians–when I lived there, she was tremendously popular.

Now granted, he’s not the crown prince, so it would probably be more of an issue with William. I’d like to think it would be fine, but I’m not British.

[Khristy]

@Gestalt

So, assuming William wanted his grandmother’s and father’s blessing before marrying . . .

If he had been dating a woman who was not white (so black, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, Latina, etc)

So, exactly what “color” are Indians, Middle Easterners and Latinas?

[Mississippienne]

A couple members of the extended British royal family have married POC. The Hon. James Lascelles (great-grandson of George V via Mary, the Princess Royal) married as his second wife an American of partial Amerindian heritage, and as his third wife a Nigerian lady.

Prince Maximilian of Liechtenstein (second son of the reigning prince Hans-Adam II) married a black Panamanian woman, Angela Brown, in 2000 and has a son with her. No controversy resulted.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Khristy

So, exactly what “color” are Indians, Middle Easterners and Latinas?

Brownish?

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Khristy

So, exactly what “color” are Indians, Middle Easterners and Latinas?

she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. “No no no,” I said, “the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs.”

This according to my authority on all things British, Fawlty Towers (along with Are You Being Served and Monty Python).

[Princhester]

It would start with paparazzi seeing them together. The debate would then begin. Philip has always been nothing more than the Queen’s handbag and I think that his views would be irrelevant. I don’t know but I suspect the Firm and many of their advisors would see major, major value in having the right East or West Asian or African descended girl as part of the family. They have always married tactically.

[Alessan]

@SciFiSam

This comes up so often from people I know aren’t avowed racists. Makes me wonder if they’d tell Jason Smith who lives down the road that he’s not British because one of his grandparents came from a different country. To be consistent, they should, but they’d actually think that was a terrible thing to do.

As the son of immigrants myself, I didn’t mean to cause offence. I just thought it was amusing to note that the royal families of Europe are much more closely related to each other than to their subjects (those of them who still have subjects).

[Ximenean]

I’m not really seeing how the Queen’s views on the matter come into it, beyond any grandmotherly influence that she may exert over William. It would be naive to pretend that, had he wanted to marry someone rather less white-home-counties than Kate Middleton, it would have passed without reaction from some quarters. But I would like to think that even those people would have got used to it by the time a wedding was on the cards.

[BigT]

Well, it’s not like a person of color would not still be British, anyways. The royal family can be 100% British and still have mostly German ancestry. I’m 100% American. I’m also Scots-Irish. There’s no discrepancy.

(I’d mention where the Scots came from, but I don’t know. Ancestry is ancestry.)