It’s too late for them to complain about the Royal Family’s institutional obligations to the British people who pay for their lifestyles. That was the package Meghan took on when getting engaged. There are many things we don’t get to control in life and in employment (to be a working royal is a job), and some preferences we don’t get to dictate to our senior family members, no matter how high- or low-born any of us may be. So it’s not that she shouldn’t stand her ground, but that she wouldn’t bend, compromise, wait her turn, learn the ropes and be graceful about the restrictions in exchange for the privileges.
For this American striver to take on a 1,000-year-old institution and vow to “hit the ground running” in her attempts to mold it to her personal tastes, all while learning to be a couple, coping with the media and pushing out a child in her advanced birthing years was arrogantly ambitious in the extreme, especially with the example of how well “modernizing the monarchy” worked out for Diana. Meghan wasn’t spiritually strong enough to prioritize building her marriage to a working royal over her personal lust for control, fame and power, and grow into her role at a pace that would help her endure. Meghan hasn’t publicly expressed a single word in terms of Christian teachings.
From a solid position after some years of patient learning and growing as a couple, they could have accomplished much in the future. But their petulance has cost them their main chance. It will be a cheapened existence from here on out.
If an American senior officer decided to go live in the UK and assume a royal title, would he be able to keep his rank and uniform? No. Could Harry discharge his actual duties as a senior officer from 2,721 miles away? No. If a white missionary married into a solely African family, would the family be curious about what color the baby would be? Of course. Would that be racism? No; not unless they denounced it, which I do not believe any immediate member of the British Royal Family has done regarding Harry’s child, given their historic position as global diplomats to a multicultural group of 154 nations and patrons to countries “of color.”
Meghan hubristically took on the most empowered woman in the world, who has been admired around the world for discharging her position dutifully and gracefully for 70 years, and failed—while bleating about empowering women. It’s not because of her racial mixture, but her outsized self-promotion, unwillingness to learn both before and after leaping, lack of accountability, and emotional insecurity. Diana and Fergie fell on the same combo of factors.
I don’t discount much of what you say except that’s like saying the Catholic Church or the Evangelical world or the Republican Party or America or UK itself doesn’t have some inherently systemic issues that are compromising their institutions from within — even without any external disturbances. The British monarchy has stood the test of time despite (our 1776) revolution and the downfall of its neighboring monarchies in Europe. Obviously it’s done a lot right.
But It is not beyond reproach. And it does need to take a deep look in the mirror every now and then.