Revealing Britain’s Systemic Racism: The Case of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex

Revealing Britain’s Systemic Racism applies an existing scholarly paradigm (systemic racism and the white racial frame) to assess the implications of the Duchess of Sussex’s entry and place in the British royal family, including an analysis that bears on visual and material culture. The white racial frame, as it manifests in the UK and internationally, represents an important lens through which to map and examine contemporary racism and related inequities. By questioning the long-held, but largely anecdotal, beliefs about racial progressiveness in the UK, the authors provide an original counter-narrative about how Meghan’s experiences as a black (biracial) member of the British royal family help illumine contemporary forms of white racism in Britain. Revealing Britain’s Systemic Racism identifies and documents the plethora of ways systemic racism continues to shape ecological and institutional spaces in the UK and beyond. Here Kimberley Ducey and Joe R. Feagin challenge romanticized notions of racial inclusivity by applying Feagin’s long-established theoretical work on systemic racism, aiming to make a unique and significant contribution to literature in sociology and in various other disciplines.

The second edition of this book continues and updates the saga of Meghan’s experiences, underscoring the myriad ways systemic racism continues to shape spaces in the UK and beyond, and especially detailing how most white Britons continue to cling to colorblind myths about their officially democratic country as the white mainstream British media deny the extensive racism that people of color still face.

Kimberley Ducey, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at the University of Winnipeg and Adjunct Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba. Her books include George Yancy: A Critical Introduction (2023) and Racist America. Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (2025).

Joe R. Feagin, PhD, is University Distinguished Professor in Sociology at Texas A&M University. He has written or co-written 80 scholarly books and 230-plus scholarly articles in his social science areas. His books include Systemic Racism (Routledge, 2006) and Racist America. Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (2025). He was the 1999-2000 president of the American Sociological Association.