How we react when someone shares a racist incident says a lot about us.

Sections of our ‘respectable’ media have been obsessed with Meghan Markle because of her background and her colour. And their opinions are being amplified by media personalities who are relaying this ‘closet racism’ to their audiences.

It is better we are upfront about this.

I admit we live in one of, if not the most tolerant nation on earth. But there are still people who would rather we turn the clocks back a hundred years when only those of a certain background and colour took up positions in higher levels in our society.

In a much publicised interview Meghan revealed to Oprah Winfrey that a member of the royal family – who both Harry and Meghan refused to identify – was worried about how dark their son Archie’s skin tone might be before he was born.

Meghan told Winfrey there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he is born”.

Asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Harry replied: “It was a large part of it.”

Recalling a conversation he had at a Sentebale fundraiser, he said he was urged by someone who is “friends with a lot of the editors”: “Please don’t do this with the media, they will destroy your life.”

He said he was told: “You need to understand that the UK is very bigoted,” to which he replied: “The UK is not bigoted, the UK press is bigoted, specifically the tabloids.”

He added: “But unfortunately if the source of info is inherently corrupt or racist or biased then that filters out to the rest of society.”

Rather than call out this apparent racism we are now in this horrible place where large sections of the press, backed again by this army of media personalities are turning on the couple even more. We would rather disparage the claim because we cannot for a moment bring ourselves to admit that this could happen in our country.

How we react to such claims matters.

The fact is colour matters. I know we will have a fair few people trying to make out that this is not the case. But deep down we know it is and the more we can talk about this openly then the better it will be for any other person of colour who decides to marry into the family in the future.

One only has to look at what has been written about other Royal family members.

We had one Prince who was hanging around with one of the biggest serial abusers of modern times. He seems to have done the ‘Royal thing’ – you know keep your head down for a whilst things blow over.

In a few years we will ease you back in and hopefully by then people will have forgotten why they were angry with you in the first place.

We like our Royals to behave in a certain way and look a certain way because that makes us feel ‘British’. The point is, the Britain of old is gone.

The past few years have shown us that despite our belief that things have changed – they haven’t.

Call me the pessimist but you would think some people wanted the marriage to fail so we could all pat ourselves on the back and say, ‘I told you she was no good’.

Admittedly, the interview could have been better timed but should a young couple really have to go through this to set the record straight?

What we have to ask ourselves is how did we get here? How did Meghan become public enemy number one? And what are we going to do about it?