I do not consider myself a royal watcher, yet I do have a bunch of royal trivia and fun facts lurking in my brain. I mean, who isn’t fascinated with the UK’s first family, the Windsors, and the thousands of years of history attached to them? I was caught up in the pomp and circumstance of Queen Elizabeth II’ funeral, and before that the engagement, wedding, and marriage of Prince Charles, now King Charles II, and Princess Diana. With that kind of interest, it would be a no-brainer to say I have kept up with Prince William and Prince Harry over the years – the proverbial “heir and a spare.” When Harry announced his engagement to Meghan Markle, he suddenly became quite the attraction for Black women. A prince who falls in love with a Black woman? His “it factor” rose by a thousand points!

But while Black women everywhere were celebrating Meghan’s good fortune and happy ending, reviving their own hopes of someday marrying a “prince,” the UK media were fueling the hungry beast of racism with all kinds of salacious tabloid gossip about the couple. With so much misinformation about them in the press, Harry and Meghan decided to share intimate details of their lives together, first in a sitdown with Oprah Winfrey, now with a Netflix docuseries simply titled “Harry and Meghan” that debuted on Dec. 8.

As we know, Meghan is a product of a White father, Thomas Markle, and a Black mother, Doria Ragland. When the dark ugliness of racist rhetoric was hurled at her by the press, Black women stood by her. We cheered her on, supported her. We cried when she detailed in the now famous interview with Oprah last year that there was discussion in Buckingham Palace regarding what her son Archie would look like once he was born. Would Archie be White presenting or Black?

Black women were angry that the Royals sat back and did nothing to protect Meghan from the harshness of the British media that were having a sensational time exploiting her and her family. It was beyond obvious that much of the harassment Markle received was intensified based on the fact that she is a Black woman. One person who was late to that understanding that was Markle. In “Harry and Meghan,” Meghan says she was shocked that she received such racist-fueled hatred in the press, saying: “It’s very different to be a minority but not be treated as a minority off the bat. Obviously now, people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the UK. Before that, most people didn’t treat me ‘like a Black woman’.” I had to rewind that scene a half dozen times before the screeching brakes in mind subsided. This one statement made me rethink everything I previously thought about Markle. “Before that, most people did not treat me ‘like a Black woman’.” Before what? Before her move to the UK? Before her engagement? Before she met Prince Harry? Had Meghan Markle lived a life where she was passing as a White woman? Everything about this statement is wrong.

I am guessing that Meghan was able to pass here in the states because she is definitely White presenting and there was not any scrutiny of her familial or genetic ties because there was no need to do so. Meghan could live her life as what she called “a mixed woman,” or accept all the rights and privileges that come with passing. If people assumed she was a White woman, it would seem that Meghan was comfortable with some aspects of that and never felt inclined to walk that assumption back.

But the realization that she is a Black woman did not come to her until her mother admitted that the hatred and vitriol from the British press had origins in racism, according to Markle, which is truly problematic. How was Markle able to convince herself that she was one of “them,” and expect to be treated as such by an institution that has shown repeated disdain for people of color and for hundreds of years? “Most people did not treat me as a Black woman?” What does that even mean?

Perhaps the reason she never encountered being treated like a Black woman is because her parents raised her to believe she was White. Why would her mother raise her Black daughter to pass? That tells me Doria could possibly have suffered from some level of self-hate about being a Black woman to not have raised her own daughter as a Black. Did she make a conscious decision to raise Meghan as a White child based on her own experiences with racism?

Maybe in volume two of the docuseries more clarification will be offered. However, the remark that “most people did not treat me as a Black woman” is jarring and quite telling. Were the expectations Markle had for herself as a member of the royal family based on who she perceived herself to be unrealistic, and does she share some blame for the division between Prince Harry and his family? All I know is that I will be side-eyeing Meghan Markle from this point on.