Prince Charles Stuns Writer With 'Racist' Remark

British writer Anita Sethi is outraged
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 21, 2018 12:20 PM CDT
Updated Apr 21, 2018 4:30 PM CDT
Prince Charles Stuns Writer With 'Racist' Remark
Britain's Prince Charles is seen in this file photo.   (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin)

Prince Charles has roused a Guardian reporter's ire by allegedly making a racist remark about her, People reports. Anita Sethi met Charles this week at the Commonwealth People's Forum, and when she told him she's from Manchester, he apparently said, "Well, you don't look like it!" and laughed. Sethi, a woman of color, says she was stunned. "Since it happened I have been through all the feelings—from shock to humiliation to rage," she writes in the Guardian. "This is exactly why some people, including the prince, urgently need a history lesson about immigration, the British empire, the Commonwealth and colonialism. Because I do look like I'm from Manchester, actually—a city in which many people of color have been born and bred."

She says Charles should no longer become Head of the Commonwealth, a position he was appointed to Friday. "We need to skip a generation so that Prince Charles does not become king of England or head of the Commonwealth, and these privileges pass to leaders more enlightened (don’t forget, the role of head of the Commonwealth is not hereditary)," writes Sethi, who is of Indian descent. "I have a message for Prince Charles. Your Royal Highness, you asked me: 'Where are you from?' To adapt a phrase from the late Ambalavaner Sivanandan: I am here because you were there." The royal family has declined to comment, the Manchester Evening News reports. (More Prince Charles stories.)

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