LONDON (UK) – It took years to realise that unconscious racial prejudice exists, said Prince Harry, adding that his eyes had been opened when he spent time stepping into his wife Meghan’s shoes.
He said this during a conversation on racism with Patrick Hutchinson, the Black activist who was photographed carrying a white man to safety during a skirmish between anti-racism protesters and members of a far-right outfit in the British capital in June.
The prince said he saw Hutchinson as a “guardian angel” protecting everyone at the protest. The duo said there was still more to be done to eliminate discrimination of all kinds.
“Unconscious bias, from my understanding, having the upbringing and the education that I had, I had no idea what it was. I had no idea it existed,” the prince said during the online conversation which was recorded last week for a magazine.
“And then, sad as it is to say, it took me many, many years to realise it, especially then living a day or a week in my wife’s shoes,” added the prince, whose father-in-law is white while his mother-in-law is African American.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have voiced their opinion on racial issues several times after stepping down from their roles as working members of the British royalty at the end of March and shifting to California in the US.
Hutchinson, 50, told the prince that a friend who had participated in an earlier protest where a policewoman had been injured had gathered a group of individuals to help restore order.
“It was us protecting everybody and, as it turned out, somebody on the other side … I would do it for anybody and I would do it time and time again,” he said.
When Harry asked what he felt of the continuing opposition to anti-racism protests, Hutchinson replied, “It’s frustrating. It just makes you wonder why people find it so hard to understand what we’re all striving for: the equality side of things.”