Meghan Markle has 'come to embrace' her mixed ethnicity after years of racism in the industry

Prince Harry's new girlfriend has opened up about her struggle with racism in the acting industry 
Navigating the industry: Meghan Markle has written an essay about being biracial in Hollywood
Robin Marchant/Getty Images
Jennifer Ruby13 December 2016
The Weekender

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Meghan Markle has said that she has 'come to embrace' her mixed ethnicity after years of racism in the acting industry.

Prince Harry’s new girlfriend, who stars in Suits, has said that she’s struggled with social media trolling about her skin colour ever since rising to fame in the US TV show.

Discussing the prejudice she faced while trying to get her break in Hollywood, Markle, 35, wrote: “Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role.

“Morphing from Latina when I was dressed in red, to African American when in mustard yellow; my closet filled with fashionable frocks to make me look as racially varied as an Eighties Benetton poster.

“Sadly, it didn't matter: I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn't book a job.”

Meghan Markle - In pictures

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After bagging the role in Suits, the online abuse began, with many viewers focusing on the fact that a ‘dark-skinned African-American man’ was cast in the role of her father.

“At the end of season two, the producers went a step further and cast the role of Rachel's father as a dark-skinned African-American man, played by the brilliant Wendell Pierce,” she wrote.

“I remember the tweets when that first episode of the Zane family aired, they ran the gamut from: 'Why would they make her dad black? She's not black' to 'Ew, she's black? I used to think she was hot.'

“The latter was blocked and reported.

"The reaction was unexpected, but speaks of the undercurrent of racism that is so prevalent, especially within America.”

But Markle has learned how to cope with the abuse and embrace her own own mixed heritage.

"While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that.

"To say who I am, to share where I'm from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.

"That when asked to choose my ethnicity in a questionnaire as in my seventh grade class, or these days to check 'Other', I simply say: 'Sorry, world, this is not Lost and I am not one of The Others. I am enough exactly as I am."

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