The controversial exchange with Indian-American comedian Mindy Kaling, 45, occurred on the Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix Show ‘With Love, Meghan’ and sparked outrage among social media users
Meghan Markle has become the centre of a racist bullying row. One of India’s leading newspapers picked up on the Duchess mocking an actor’s accent in her new TV show. The New Delhi-based Hindustan Times clamed the Duchess of Sussex, 43, attacked Mindy Kaling, 45, because or the way she speaks.
On Thursday it ran the headline: “Meghan Markle called a ‘racist bully’ for mocking Indian-origin Mindy Kaling’s accent.” If follows Ms Markle and Ms Kaling appearing in a kitchen together on “With Love, Meghan” on Netflix.
Social media users accused the Duchess of pretending not to understand what Ms Kaling was saying after she pronounced the word “look” as “lewk”. The exchange was aired in episode two of “Meghan, With Love” and has “sparked outrage among Indians on the social media platform X,” the Hindustan Times reports.
In the segment, a compliment from Ms Kaling triggered a puzzled reaction from Ms Markle, who appeared to take a few seconds to realise what was being said. “By the way Meghan, I want to ask about your look,” said Ms Kaling.
“My who?” Ms Markle replied, forcing Ms Kaling to repeat the word. The Duchess finally had a dig at Ms Kaling’s accent, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking – my lewk. She likes my lewk”.
The Times added: “The exchange led to accusations of racism on social media as certain people accused Meghan of intentionally pretending she could not understand Mindy’s Indian accent.”
Ms Kaling was born in India to a Tamil father and Bengali mother. Her family immigrated to the USA the year she was born, and she grew up speaking English at home.
“I was raised speaking English only because my parents spoke two different Indian languages, so the only language we all had in common was English,” Ms Kaling said in 2018. She said that she had to learn Hindi for her role in Ocean’s 8, and – according to the Hindustan Times – has a “Hindu inflection”.
One X user wrote: “Watching Meghan literally humiliate Mindy over that small mispronunciation and go on about it instead of laughing & shrugging it off was really triggering for me,” adding: “It’s basically racial bullying.”
Others agreed, with one saying: “Unless you are trying to teach someone, a child, foreign student of English, it is incredibly rude to correct a person’s error. Only a seriously uncouth person would do that, particularly on worldwide TV.”
And another said: “I just saw a clip of it, it’s disgusting the way she did that! Humiliating her so-called friend. Definite mean girl behaviour, I’ve heard enough about her today to last me a year.”
Another X user wrote: “Yes, I noticed the same thing… she made fun of her accent, I can’t believe they actually aired that piece, so passive aggressive.”
Both Meghan Markle and her husband, Prince Harry, placed the Royal Family at the centre of a race storm in 2021, after alleging that questions were asked about the colour of their expected baby. Prince Harry has also been accused of racism in the past, after insulting enthnic minority soldiers on a video in 2009, and being pictured in a Nazi uniform at a party.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
