PERHAPS it’s not surprising that the tabloids had a field day on discovering that Prince Harry’s new girlfriend, Meghan Markle, was bi-racial – or in her own words, “half black and half white”. Only a few years ago they were prattling on about how Kate Middleton was a “commoner”. And if the Sun felt at liberty to take footage that the website Pornhub had ripped from her TV series Suits, and use it to run the headline “Harry’s girl’s on Pornhub” – well, that’s the way they treat royal suitors. Here we go again, was my initial response.

Only it feels even worse this time because of the current climate around race and because certain papers seem to be using whatever they can to create an atmosphere in which what matters is who is insider, who outsider, who belongs and who does not.

Last week, Prince Harry felt the need to issue a public statement calling out the racism and sexism that had been flung by the media at Markle, an actor little-known in the UK but famous in the United States for playing Rachel Zane in Suits. Kensington Palace criticised the “wave of abuse and harassment” she had experienced, declaring that “Prince Harry is worried about Ms Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her”. Among the attacks singled out were “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments”.

This seemed like a significant moment, partly because it was a Royal first, in which we appeared to see them actually learning about racism first-hand.

But this story wasn’t really about the monarchy. It was more about the current political and cultural climate. These headlines and articles are part of a wider narrative. The Royal Family, whatever its actual genetic make-up, more than almost any institution, stands for white privilege. By talking about Markle predominantly in terms of race and background, newspapers are shamelessly raising a very particular question for debate. They are saying: here is another white institution under threat, from someone who is not only a woman, with a career and a previous marriage, but also “half black”. Should we let her in? Is she good enough for our Harry?

Meghan Markle, as well as an actor, is an activist and an ambassador for women at the United Nations, who gave a speech on on International Women’s Day, saying: “I am proud to be a woman and a feminist.” She then went on to recount how when she was 11 years old, she saw an advert with the tagline, “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans” and felt driven to write to both Hillary Clinton, then First Lady, and the advertiser, who then amended the ad to say: “People all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.” Yet, in the tabloid newspapers, she was caricatured as if she were a porn star or a brood mare, whose background and ancestry needed to be detailed and picked apart, whose most important attribute was her DNA.

Sometimes it’s hard to see which ethnic group these articles were supporting, and who they were trying to undermine. Such was the case with Rachel Johnson’s piece in the Mail on Sunday, about “Harry’s hottie”, in which she declared that if the couple had children, “the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA”. What we see here is insulting to all, the ginger and the “exotic”, and a vision of the world with eugenics at its heart.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all this is happening at the same time as, in the United States, a white man who wants to erect a wall is taking over from the first black president, and on both sides of the Atlantic the issue of who crosses what borders, who is an outsider, who not, is the issue of the day. Nor is it by accident that it happens the week after business woman Gina Miller received death threats and racial abuse following the High Court success of her campaign to ensure Parliament was consulted before the triggering of Brexit.

It’s a form of clickbait, designed to provoke those on either side. Bigots who feel offended by a perceived assault on institutions of Britishness and privilege, clearly felt free to use Markle’s background as an excuse for racism, under the guise of talking about what they thought “the Firm” would think of it. Meanwhile, others felt offended by the tone of the articles, filling up the comment boards with urges to leave the couple alone, or observations that, in today’s world, it was no big deal.

Markle may be with Harry for the long run, or just long enough to play a brief featuring role in the soap opera that is our Royal Family. Either way, what should concern us is the way her story is being used as just another piece of propaganda in an attempt to rouse our prejudices, create division and stoke up hate.