Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, delivered an emotional speech about systematic racism that prevails in the United States of America to lend a voice to the widespread protests against the death of George Floyd, a 46-years-old unarmed black man, at the hand of the police, reported NBC news.
She was virtually addressing graduating students at her former high school, Immaculate Heart, in Los Angeles, and described recent events in the US as “absolutely devastating”.
“I wanted to say the right thing...I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing because George Floyd’s life mattered and Breonna Taylor’s life mattered and Philando Castile’s life mattered and Tamir Rice’s life mattered,” she said and added, "And so did of so many other people, whose name we know and whose name we don't know, mattered."
She then went on to reference one of her teacher’s saying that helped her gather courage in her life.
“One of my teachers, Ms. Pollia, said to me, ‘always remember to put other’s needs above your own fears. That has stuck with me throughout my entire life and I have thought about it more in the last week than ever before,” she said.
In her speech, Markle looked back on her childhood experience of the Los Angeles riots of 1992 after four police officers filmed severely beating black taxi driver Rodney King were acquitted of assault. A "senseless act of racism" had provoked these events too, she said.
“I remember the curfew and I remember rushing back home and on that drive home, seeing ash fall from the sky and smelling the smoke and seeing the smoke billow out of buildings… I remember pulling up at the house and seeing the tree, that had always been there, completely charred. And those memories don’t go away.”
She appreciated people coming together and stand against police brutality.
