Fostering Diversity in Children’s Literature and Media with Dawn-Maria France

Richard Dodds:
0:00

This is Still Talking Black, a show where we discuss issues affecting blackness from a black point of view. I'm your host, Richard Dyes. Today. I'm joined by Dyle Maria, an editor, a children's author and a mental health advocate in the United Kingdom. We talk about the ways that the UK and America are alike and different, and some of the issues that she's faced growing up in the UK.

Dawn-Maria France :
0:23

So, without further ado, my name is Dyle Maria France, an editor of Newsled Yorkshire Women's Life magazine. I'm also a children's author, broadcaster and mental health campaigner, and I live in Yorkshire in the UK.

Speaker 3:
0:40

That's awesome. You've done a lot of different things. I didn't know that you were doing kids books.

Dawn-Maria France :
0:49

Yes, I started them. Well, my background before became a journalist, I worked as a youth worker. So I used to work with children that came from chaotic backgrounds and I always looked to elevate the children that I worked with. So I set about trying to find positive images which would lift up the children that I worked with, because they came from some of the most troubling backgrounds where the parents probably had alcohol abuse or were quite poor because they might have been on benefits or social aid. And I was trying to find the kind of books that would elevate the children that I was working with. And I couldn't find those types of books. So I thought, well, I'll do some research into how to write children's books and try and find really uplifting characters. So the research took about four years and I worked with lots of children's groups and organisations and parents and I went on quite a lot of writing courses to get the tone and the pitch just right for children and I developed a character which is a very strong, no nonsense, knows her own mind little girl, and I made her from a family that wasn't a conventional family. She was adopted, so I wanted to reach out to some of the children that I worked with to show that families come in all shapes and sizes and that you can be strong as a little girl. But I was taken aback by the feedback on both sides of the channel, both in America and also in England. The feedback has been amazing and that was very, very privileged to get the kind of feedback from the children that were reading the books as well. They really liked the characters, they got it, they understood that the characters were strong. And the second book I've got a mixed race little girl in it with her hair in plaid. So black children and mixed race children could see themselves in that character and I hope to develop it, going forward and bringing more diversity To characters from different cultural backgrounds, going forward and new and interesting stories as well. So that's the plan taking the children's book forward.

Speaker 3:
3:10

What kind of hairstyle is having a hair in plaid? So I've never heard of that before.

Dawn-Maria France :
3:15

Oh, I think you call it braiding. Do you call it braiding in America?

Speaker 3:
3:19

Oh, okay, yeah, we call it braids in America.

Dawn-Maria France :
3:21

Yeah, you call it braids. Well, in Caribbean culture we call it plaids, so kind of like I've got my hair now just in plaids, but you call it braids, so I really wanted the character to have a natural hairstyle that was synonymous with her culture. So that's why I had the little girl with a hair in braids plaids.

Speaker 3:
3:45

That's kind of an amazing story that you couldn't and I think the word that you use was image, like you couldn't find an image to show these kids that came from such a rough background that you had to create it. Why, would you say, it's so important for kids to be able to see images that are outside of where they are now?

Dawn-Maria France :
4:03

Because the children that I worked with. They came from some of the poorest backgrounds and all they had was that area and I tried to show them that there was life outside of that area. So I used to take the children to the theater, I used to take them for picnics. I used to show them that just because they were from a poor background, that didn't define who they were. That was their start, but they could move beyond it. So I was looking for characters in children's books to elevate the work that I was doing with the children by lifting them up and showing them there were alternatives. They might have had the poor start, but they could go on and do something constructive with the life and it's important sometimes to see characters in books. I know it was vital for me. My mum went out of her way to get a book called Ebony, which is an American magazine you might be familiar with. But seeing Ebony in our household and seeing those beautiful black women, those black people in America who were doing amazing things, was so powerful to me to have that magazine. I knew what a difference it made for me and I knew it would make a difference for the children that I was in charge of.

Speaker 3:
5:19

That's something I think that's something sometimes we end up taking for granted. Is that representation? And I even think about when Disney released a little mermaid and it had a black aerial and how much of an uprising it was and some people that were not black were saying why do they have to make her black? Now my daughter doesn't have like she can't relate to aerial and it's like well, for a lot of people from different cultures. A lot of times we don't get to see ourselves in like the characters, whether it's a cartoon or whether it's a big budget film. It's just like recently. Now we're just starting to see characters like Black Panther and different characters like that. That really represents us and it's not Black Cinema, is mainstream cinema and it makes a big difference being mainstream versus being something specifically just for black people.

Dawn-Maria France :
6:13

I think that's really amazing, it's absolutely true.

Speaker 3:
6:18

Let's circle back. So for you. Why did you choose journalism? What made you be attracted to journalism?

Dawn-Maria France :
6:27

I think I always loved writing. I always loved words. I always looked books. I loved the fact that you could pick up a book and not know about the subject and by the time you finished the book, it had educated you. I loved the way words transported me to different places and took me to different experiences and I always loved having books around. And my mum, when I was younger, she took me to the Caribbean to meet my uncle because she knew that I loved words and I loved books, I loved writing, and she took me to see my uncle in the Caribbean and he was a journalist and for me, that whole representation of seeing someone who looked like me, who was doing what I wanted to do, was it, was huge to me. It was so amazing for my young self to see that and I knew that word meant a lot and they did a lot. And I knew articles and journalists made a difference because they went to tell the stories. They were entrusted by people to tell their stories and talk about their lived experience and it was something that burned deep inside and I knew that I needed to do it. I needed to be entrusted to tell other people's stories and to write articles that would make people think, and I think I was born to do it. I'd never wanted to do anything else. I'd never imagined myself doing anything else. It was something I'd wanted to do since I was about six and I remember my aunt saying that when I was about four I was writing something in a diary and she was correcting it, and she said that I was so angry. My four-year-old self thought how dare you correct my writing? And she said she just knew. But what was amazing was my mum used to write to my granny, who was in the Caribbean, every week and I must have scribbled on the letter. And then my granny in the Caribbean cut out my scribble and she put it in the photo album. So that is my first bit of writing. And I can't tell you how it felt, going to the Caribbean and seeing my first bit of writing as a baby that my gran had kept all those years and I believe it's still in the family album. So that's my first bit of writing. It's almost like she knew that I was going to go on to be a writer, because why else would she have kept that scribble? You'd have thought she would have just got rid of it and cut it out and bind it, but she actually kept it and that touched me deeply.

Speaker 3:
9:04

That's amazing I mean, that's amazing all the way around how you got inspired. Well, you got reinforced by seeing your uncle doing something, someone that looked like you, doing the same thing that you wanted to do, and it's just like, oh wow, like I'm on the right path. That's an amazing thing to see.

Dawn-Maria France :
9:21

It was because the school that I went to it was a predominantly white school and there wasn't that many black people going to the school and the school it was quite a racist school. Now I'm looking back I didn't see it at the time because you just don't see that, and they kind of put us into boxes. The white children that were well off, they were going to go to university and the sky was the limit. But for the black children who were from neighborhoods that weren't as affluent, the sky was our limit and we couldn't actually get to it, whereas the white children were pushed towards university and we were pushed towards kind of like domestic, kind of jobs, you know, like caring and to be like porters and such like. They kind of wrote us off at a young age and didn't encourage us. So for my mum to actually show me someone who looked like me was very important because I wasn't getting that support at the school.

Speaker 3:
10:27

Isn't that something like? I think me being an American? Sometimes, I think, as a black American, I think that that's an inherent American problem that as a young black child whether they say it with words or just with action you are told that you are limited to what you can do and it's kind of like reinforced, it's like sky isn't the limit for you. But to hear you in a whole other country say that you experience the same thing miles and miles away from me, is that it's like wow, it's really not even just an America problem.

Dawn-Maria France :
11:07

No, no, it's not at all. And the saddest thing for me was that Caribbean people were invited to come to the UK, to come to England from the islands to build up the country after the second world war. They were invited but when my parents came here they couldn't get anywhere to rent. Other black people had to buy houses to rent to other black people because they couldn't actually get anywhere to live. And also what I noticed was Jewish people started to open factories to employ people like my mum and dad, so other minorities had to employ minorities who were invited here. But in England we've had the Black Panthers. We've had our own civil rights movement in the UK that ran between 1968 to 1973, so we've had the struggle as well. When the Caribbean people came to England, a lot of them found themselves in low-skilled jobs, so there was a lot of tension with immigrants. There was a lot of interracial tension as well and violence between the police who were harassing black men at the time, and that led to the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. So in England we've had our own Black Panthers. We've had our own struggles to get some kind of support just to live your normal life, and we've been fighting against police harassment and brutality, against our own racism in this country. So the struggle has been not only in America, but in the UK as well.

Speaker 3:
12:56

That's something sad to have to share, that even you can't get away from it. No matter where you are, I feel like people that are skin-toned are constantly having to fight for our equality. I actually got a chance to look at some of the articles that you wrote about that. It's just why is it so important? Because I feel like, especially in America, I can speak on it specifically, but I feel like journalism is really, I feel like it's in crisis just because so many different things are going on. Like you know, with the previous president, he put a lot of journalistic integrity to the side and he made people really question journalism when it didn't. When journalism doesn't agree with how you, how your feelings are, it's in question not only that, but like, especially like I know here, like people are reading less newspaper, it's more social media where they get their news and their information. How have you adapted in that kind of environment to make, to make yourself and journalism still relevant, because so many stories and stuff like good information that you're trying to get to people.

Dawn-Maria France :
14:08

Well, I always try to keep my finger on the pulse. I don't write articles that are not challenging. I write articles to make you think. I do a lot of research to make people understand what's actually going on and I write about things that matter. So I've written about black men and mental health because the conversation wasn't a conversation that I felt was being examined or talked about or really written about to the extent because I usually do deep dive when I do my articles, I do lots and lots of research and I don't. I'm not writing for people to think it's popular. I'm writing to get people to ask questions, to put information out there for them to know what's going on, to question the narrative, and the feedback I've had is amazing. You have to adapt. So of course, I've done articles for the Huffington Post, which is online because I've trained in newspaper, but of course the new media is online, so I've had to adapt to write articles that are online as well. But I mean things that really concern me. It's not just writing about race issues, which I do, because obviously I know a lot about that, but I write about mental health and social issues as well, and I write a lot about politics, so my range of writing is quite vast. But things that concern me are that black people, especially young black men, are four times more likely to be detained under the mental health act in the UK. And then research shows that adult black community is 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems like depression or anxiety. And then when you look at what's causing that, a lot of the time it's stress and it's racism. And then the government knows about this because the government releases papers to say that there's more black people in the system. For example, uk Home Office. They published in May, the 26th of May this year. They said that black people are almost five times likely than white people to be detained under the mental health act 342 detentions for every 100,000 people, compared with 72% for every 100,000 people. So black and other ethnic groups have got the highest detention rates in psychiatric wards and being detained under the mental health act. And then the lowest rate is why? Irish at 62% for every 100,000. So there's a crisis. And what annoys me is the UK government knows there's a crisis, but they're not doing anything about it. So then it's left to journalists to expose that and say, look, we've got a problem, we need to have a conversation about it. So there is a role for journalists to tell the truth about what's happening. I know that Donald Trump was always trying to say that the journalists were against him and whatnot, but you need to have in a democracy, you need to have free speech and you need to have journalists that are truth sayers, who are tackling difficult subjects, and that's where our role is. We need to have journalists to hold the government to account, to hold organisations to account. Otherwise, what's the point if you don't have journalists to talk about what's happening, to research, to actually put information out there, to have conversations and to have debates? And, of course, I've had to adapt to use the new media, like social media, to get the stories out there. So, as a journalist, I've had to move with the times because my background was newspaper, but I've had to move with social media. So you do have to adapt. But I'm proud with the kind of articles that I've done because they are hard hitting, they're well researched and they do get people to think as well.

Speaker 3:
18:25

So there's going to always be a role for someone like me to actually get those stories out there and to have those conversations and encourage those debates and I think that is a fundamental purpose of journalism is to really shine a light on things that might not necessarily get that light and like for someone like you. I know that you do a ton of research for everything that you do and it's like sometimes, so that makes sometimes it takes longer. How do you combat like people just spewing things? I mean like maybe it's different in England, but here somebody could just say something and if enough people see it, then it starts to become fact for a lot of people and then when the well researched people come out and say no, no, no, no, that's actually not how it is, it's already running cycle and it's kind of hard to pull back the wall and be like hey guys, y'all been believing the wrong thing, this is the facts. The facts usually get far less traction from what I've seen like, especially recently. Yeah, that's how do you combat that.

Dawn-Maria France :
19:31

Well, the thing is, we'd things like the Huffington Post and other publications that I've written for, which have got a really good reputation for fact finding, for actually getting journalists who will do the groundwork, and what I've noticed is, since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter as well, there is a counter narrative for every negative story. There is someone like me who's writing with the facts of what's actually going on. So I feel quite hopeful because I noticed the platform is getting better and there is a lot of people listening and a lot of people doing research and a lot of people that are listening to journalists like myself who are putting the truth out there. Because I usually put links in my articles where they can click, because if it's online, they can click on the article to see where the source is from, so they can see that it has been fact checked and that what they're seeing from me is quite authentic. Because I do a lot of deep diving and it does take quite a while to do your articles, because I don't want to miss out on vital bits of research for the articles that I write.

Speaker 3:
20:44

Yeah, I've seen you said Elon Musk, since he took over Twitter and renamed it to X. Yeah, it's funny because I really kind of had to step back from that platform just because the information that I was getting fed started to change a little bit. Like stuff that I was interested in kind of became fewer and fewer, and then stuff that I wasn't so interested in and stuff that just didn't necessarily pass the taste test was getting fed to me and I was like I don't know what he's doing. I know he's taking away some checks and balances, so it almost feels like that is a social experiment going wrong. How can I change this? Because I feel like it's so much power and media and that's one of the reasons why it's so important for the separation between having, like a government and then media and it's almost like an additional check and balance, just because, if we've seen, in countries where the government controls the media there's a lot, they can kind of bend the community to their will. You know, to a certain degree.

Dawn-Maria France :
21:53

That's true, but what I've noticed on Twitter since Elon Musk took it over is the voices that were pushed off, the voices that would be saying things that he may not want to hear but were truthful. And now, coming back onto Twitter, so it feels like it's it's kind of evening out, because those voices were removed from Twitter, so you never heard that side of the argument. You just heard one side, which was probably leaning more towards the left, maybe towards the Democrats, but you didn't hear other voices. So I've noticed that you are now hearing other voices. So it feels like you're getting that bit of a balance which I didn't see before under the previous owners. So people that were just taken off because their views might not have been towards the left, as it were. Now you're seeing other people's voices and hearing other people's voices as well, which is a good thing, because now you're getting a bit of a balance and that's good to see.

Speaker 3:
22:56

I want. It's like free speech is such a tricky thing, especially for like something like a social media network, just because I feel like money instantly moves like one way or another, depending on who has the money and who has the influence. Like you can move the needle either way and I just think it's. It's a. I think it's just a delicate balance to walk between free speech, because if I don't like it, then it's wrong and get it off. But if I said it and you don't like it, that's free speech, like it's such a, it's just it all, it all, in that I mean that's the left and the right. I'll put it on everybody, democrats, republicans. It's almost like if I don't agree with it, then it's wrong and free speech doesn't matter. But if you don't agree with me, then it's free speech and you need to get over it so I can see where you're coming from.

Dawn-Maria France :
23:46

Yeah Well, what I noticed is some people who didn't speak with the narrative and who were completely removed off Twitter have now got their accounts installed. So now you're able to hear what they've got to say about a wide range of issues, whether you agree with them or not. At least you're able to hear them, whereas before Elon Musk took over, these people were basically canceled, so you never got to hear their voice or what their opinion was about the big things that are going on in the USA and also in England. For example, tonight on Twitter, bill Gates's car was surrounded by ordinary members of the public who were calling for him to be jailed or whatever. Now, before you'd never see that. You would not have seen that clip about Bill Gates. Before Elon Musk got it, that would have been quietly removed. But now you're able to see it. So things like that you're able to see and hear about people's opinions, whether you're palatable to it or not, or whether you're on the left or the right. At least you can hear both sides, whereas before you just couldn't. You just heard one side of the narrative. But I think that free speech is in danger. People feel like they have to censor what they're saying. They're living in very bizarre times and I would like it to at some point come to an end where we could speak freely about whatever the issue is that we want to talk about, because it's fundamental in a democracy. That's one of the founding cause is to have free speech and to have a democracy and to have freedom of choice and freedom to speak as you want to. We don't live in a dictatorship, but sometimes it feels that way because the government in both America and in England don't feel strong enough to actually allow the people to be who they want to be and to be their authentic self. So we still have to push to have our voices, because we've been through a lot as people, and particularly as black people. We've struggled. We've had people like Martin Luther King, who's fought for us to have this conversation and to be able to be our authentic self. So we need to be mindful that we need to continue to speak our mind and speak our truth, because it's vital to do that, because we've come from too far and we've travelled for too long to be in a position to speak about our experience, and we owe it to ourselves and our ancestors and all the people that went before us and we owe it to our children's children to be able to have our voice, and that's why it's important for us to speak about what's going on, and I take it seriously. As a writer, I know that it's entrusted to me from my ancestors for me to continue to write about things. It means a great deal to me and I take it seriously.

Speaker 3:
26:56

Yeah, social media free speech is like a whole. That's a whole, like that's such a big rabbit hole because that's like a whole bunch of topics in one, just because I feel like one of the biggest threats to free speech is the fact that you can have somebody go and say something that's untrue and it could get so much traction and people will believe it. Like even when, like I remember before Elon Musk bought Twitter, he would say something and it would start to affect the free market enterprise because he would say something. Then the markets would shift and that would really mess up, put in jeopardy some of the livelihoods of some of those workers is working for those companies, because it would dip up or down from just a tweet and you think about something that's so powerful and it's just like from a liability standpoint, it's like nobody wants to be responsible, like the private corporations don't want to be responsible to government probably shouldn't be responsible, but there probably should be some guidelines put in place. But I don't know how it is in England, but in America we have been really slow to keep up with the technology and being able to govern the technology as it comes and it's far out patient, I mean like one of the scariest things now is artificial intelligence, and I mean even in like writing, like they people are writing with artificial intelligence and doing law or artificial intelligence and it's been it's starting to cause some problems because, like they're finding, like sometimes AI just makes up stuff. So it's going to be an interesting next couple of years seeing how governments figure that out.

Dawn-Maria France :
28:31

Yeah, I think we Twitter and with other social media spaces. I would rather the government stay out of that space, because the government's got their own agenda in some respects and I would rather that space. Even if people write on Twitter which might not be palatable to me at least if they have that space to do that and have that expression, I would rather support people having that freedom to write. Even if it's not for me, then have the government have their claws in it, because the government could probably manipulate it. So I would prefer it to not have government influences. For example, you look at China, where they're actually governing what people can say on social media and if it's against the government, they can use the social credit because the person didn't have the right thought or they didn't have the right phraseology and it was against the government narrative. I would rather have it separate, like it is, without the government interference, because nobody wants a social credit system where the government could tell you how to think, how to talk and what you should or shouldn't say. No one wants a dictatorship. So we need to fight to keep social media out of government control and from what I've seen from Musk, yes, he's got quite a few things wrong, but it's good to see people who were thrown off the platform back on the platform just to hear their point of view, which you may or may not agree with. But you need to have the counter narrative, to listen to other people and just hear other voices and other opinions. You can't have just one side of the argument. You need to have the whole side of the argument, so then you can make an informed choice, and that's what I think Elon Musk has brought to the table.

Speaker 3:
30:23

Yeah, I can understand your point of view. I definitely do Like I don't necessarily totally agree with the Elon Musk stuff, but I definitely do get your point and it's very, it's very generalistic. Just because you're like, whatever the other side like, whether I agree with it or not, I at least people need to at least be able to hear it and make up their own minds. But I wish everybody was as thoughtful as you. Even when I see stuff that I agree with, I do try to look it up just to make sure it's true before I take it as doctrine. You know what I mean. But everybody doesn't do that and I think the scariest part is that a lot of people don't critically think anymore. And that's what makes me feel a little bit, because somebody could say something and everybody don't always use their best judgment. They don't fact check, they use one source and that's bad for both sides. You see, either you use a leftist place or a rightist place and whatever they say, you're going to take it at face value and that's going to be law and I don't think either one of those are good.

Dawn-Maria France :
31:20

That's true. I do encourage people to critical think and to not just take it on board but to actually do your own research and find out more about whatever the conversation is. I mean, I always do that anyway, probably because I'm a person who critically thinks, and I've noticed a few people online are doing that more and more, that they're seeing something and then they're going away and looking it up. So you've seen people doing that. I mean I'd like to see more people doing it, but I have seen a trickle of people actually doing that more looking into things, questioning. You need to question things as well. It's always healthy for you mentally, physically, otherwise to question whatever the narrative is and find out and follow what it is that's been told to you why is it being told to you and sometimes follow the money trail as well to find out exactly what's behind the narrative. Sometimes you have to peel back the layers to see what the real story is.

Speaker 3:
32:25

Yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree with you. And speaking of media, we kind of talked about this before. I'm so curious as someone in the States, like I was really surprised when Megan Markle, Mary, Prince Harry I did not expect it to be so much backlash was. I mean, that was surprising to me as someone in the United States. Was that surprising to you when that started to happen?

Dawn-Maria France :
32:54

Well, when Megan actually started dating Prince Harry, she did seem to get a lot of love from the British public and it turns out, from what I read, that it looks like she and Prince Harry will be coming really popular. So it sounds like there might have been briefing against them because the can't be more popular than what's going to be the king in the future. That's what it feels like. So then it felt like they were then played as some kind of you know awful people and all the dirt started to stick on them. But I did see some racist posts about Megan. I mean, there was one that I thought was absolutely incredible. So this woman said I thought Megan was Italian, I didn't know she was black, as if to say so what? So she's black. And I remember reading in the paper they had a picture of Megan and her mom, doria, and at no point in this article would they say that this was her mom. They kept saying this is Megan's friend, who is a yoga teacher and a social worker. But they had a huge picture of her white dad and it was at the end of the article, the very end. It said this is Megan's mom and it was like what is this. It was almost like the played her as the angry black woman kind of narrative, which I thought was ridiculous and a lot of people said her race might have been an impact in that you know this black woman who has her own career, who's clearly strong, who knows her own mind. You know they almost made it sound like she had taken this white guy hostage and he couldn't get away from the big, angry black woman and it was like what are you doing with this narrative? It's just ridiculous and I'm glad that Megan kept her counsel. I'm glad that, regardless to all the noise that was around her portraying her in this ridiculous light, that she managed to keep herself strong, not have some kind of mental health breakdown because the pressure and the noise around her. I mean I remember watching them. It was like a breakfast program and this woman phoned in. It was one of those where members of the public could phone in and the person phoned in and they said I hate Megan and they don't know her. And then the the host said well, why do you hate her? And the person put the phone down and it was like how are you hating this woman? You don't know who she is and it's just ridiculous. There's just so much noise about Megan being painted as this dreadful person for falling in love with the prince and then make out that he's been captured by it and he was in. He's actually been a soldier, so he's not being captured by anybody. This is quite a strong character who fought in Iraq. You know he's not being captured by the big black woman. It's just, oh, it's just. It actually annoys me by the actual noise around it. And then you've got the uncle Andrew, who's a very sinister character who's friends of Epstein. So I would have thought he would have got more criticism than a black woman who's married the prince. It's just so. Sometimes it feels like racism does raise its head, because sometimes I wonder if she was white, I don't think she'd have got that kind of aggravation. And there seems to be a lot of people lining up, including her own family there, of no help at all. The dad won't shut up the sisters a bit sinister herself. You know she's got no right to be going after Megan. When her own daughter got married, didn't invite her to the wedding and invited Megan, but that didn't get reported because you know that doesn't fit the narrative and her sisters can smell the money. So she's looks like she's been. I don't know. It looks like someone might be bankrolling. I don't think she's got the funds to be suing.

Speaker 3:
37:25

Megan, didn't she write a book or something like one of the sisters? Yeah, she was supposed to?

Dawn-Maria France :
37:30

Yeah, she was supposed to have written a book Quity Sizing Megan and then it looks like she's suing Megan as well and it sounds ridiculous. But I remember someone saying something in the newspaper and they were saying well, the black side of the family are being very dignified. It just seems to be the white side of the family who were carrying on, you know, like Trailer Park type of people. Really they don't seem to have any kind of sense. And I watched something where the dad they said to Megan's dad, would you stop selling stories on it if it meant you could meet the grandchildren and start to repair your relationship? And you know he said no, he said he wouldn't, he said that Megan owed him and he sounded like he was going to continue to get money off the back of her. So if that's the dad's intent, you can see why the relationship is broken down. Because the mum, doria, she's never, ever, to my knowledge, sold any stories about Megan, the children, prince Harry, she's had a very dignified way of how she conducts herself and I think that's why she's still in Megan's life and I believe they refer to Doria as the rock. So she's allowed to see her grandchildren and she's built up a lovely relationship with her daughter and her son-in-law. But the dad's is too busy sort of selling stories and I think he's short-sighted as well, because he could stop all this tomorrow. And what's the point Selling stories is missing out and watching the grandchildren grow up and ask for the sister. I mean regardless to what the sister says. Her black half sister married the prince. Just throwing that out there.

Speaker 3:
39:19

Yes, it's, I think, the most point thing that you said, that somebody thought she was Italian and they thought one way about her. And then, when they found out she was black, it's like, ooh, like I don't know the same person who didn't change any, and I'm wondering how much like? Once, as the relationship got more serious, more people probably started to check the background and I was like, oh, she's not actually like Italian or something. She's actually. She's not even. You can't even say mixed race, right, she's mixed. She's a little bit of this, a little bit of that. They go straight to black. She's black. So therefore, everything is bad. That's kind of that's kind of crazy, and I feel like that's how it tends to be, Like you could talk on the phone with somebody and maybe like your best friend, and then you meet them and it's like ooh, I didn't know you were black. Like that changes everything. Oh, it does. This is crazy how the world works.

Dawn-Maria France :
40:17

And the thing with Megan is she's always been filmed with her mom. You know she's always. She said that when she was younger I don't know how young she was, but her mom was trying to get a car space and a white woman used the N word to her mom and her mom was in tears and the young Megan cradled her mom and said mom, it's okay, Don't worry about it. So Megan has seen this firsthand, hearing this racial terminology, this disgusting word used to her mom, and she was there and she saw that. And when Megan was younger and her mom was pushing it in a pram, people thought that her mom was the nanny and people would question her mom about this white looking child and all this. And Megan knows all this. And Megan as well has had all this kind of micro, passive aggressive, because Prince Harry said he never knew about micro aggression until he met Megan and that she educated him about micro and passive aggressive, which we've all experienced. I've experienced it myself. So she's been able to advise him about what it's like, regardless to the fact that she looks so pale. You know, she sees herself as a woman of color. She said it in numerous speeches and she's not ashamed of her mom. She's written in articles. My mom is an African American who's got locks, small locks, in her hair. That's how she describes her mom. So I think maybe there was a narrative for her to try and pretend. But she has not. And to me she's a strong black woman and she's someone you know to be held up, because I don't think I could have put up with the scrutiny, the harassment that she gets day in and day out. It's just ridiculous. I don't know how anyone could cope with that.

Speaker 3:
42:14

Yeah, it's tough. I feel like England and you guys' media is like so much more intense, Like when you guys focus, especially when it comes to the Royal Family. Like I remember when Princess Diana died and even before that, everybody was so focused on what Diana was doing and I was like, wow, like this is, this is crazy Like this is like like media sometimes can just go so crazy on the subject and we forget that the people that we follow, like that, they're still. They're still just people. They gotta go through the same struggles, but they also got to deal with the added pressure of being in the limelight the way that they are.

Dawn-Maria France :
42:50

Absolutely. And Megan is strong. You know. You look at when she, when she was younger, when she was campaigning for various things, I mean this is quite a strong character, you know going on national television talking about the, the cereal packet or the washing up power, and she needs to be more inclusive. So she was a natural leader from since she was 13. And she talks about when she went for acting jobs sleeping in her car. So she knows about getting rejections from casting sleeping in her car, having not much money, only having enough money for petrol to get to the next audition. So she wasn't born with a silver spoon in their mouth. She knows what it's like. So she is real. And I think that's why he was attracted to her, because he had all the other women maybe princesses and whatnot but he chose her and this is the woman that he married and has children with. And I think we need to respect his decision and move on, because there's enough things going on in the world for us to be so obsessed with this couple when the whole world is yeah, the whole world is changing before our eyes and I think we should be more concerned with what's happening in our neighborhoods, in our countries, as opposed to this rich couple who fell in love and got married and had children. Just leave them to get on with their life and to live their best life and to bring up the children the way they want to. And let's concentrate with what's actually happening around the world, because there's a lot happening.

Speaker 3:
44:32

Yeah, it's not like she was broke when she met him.

Dawn-Maria France :
44:35

No, I mean she was in suits. I mean I've not seen suits that often, but when I've seen it and she's been in it. She has yeah, she has been particularly good. I've watched it a few times and she had her own money, she had her own career. She didn't marry him to to sponge off him. She had made her own money in her own right and she made it her way. And it's clear that she has a good relationship with her mom as well.

Speaker 3:
45:04

As a suits fan, the only thing that bothered me when she married the prince was that she had to get ridden off a suit, so like that was the saddest part for me. It's like they rule off two characters because of that. But I get it. No, I totally get it. You got to follow, you got to do it and make you happy.

Dawn-Maria France :
45:21

Absolutely, and she does seem happy now that she's a mum and she's met her prince technically. But what was really, really what really made me laugh is they had like a reality programme in England where they got someone to pretend he was Prince Harry and he was. It was like the bachelor. It was that kind of programme.

Richard Dodds:
45:45

If you're familiar with the bachelor.

Dawn-Maria France :
45:47

Yeah, so it was like that. So he pretended he was the prince and all these women were trying to win his attention and in the end he chose this white woman who was blonde, with blue eyes, and then he had to say I'm not the prince and whatnot, and they decided to split the money, but in reality the prince would have chosen the black woman, because all the black women that was fine for this man's attention he got rid of, but in reality he would have chosen one of them. I just thought that was quite funny.

Speaker 3:
46:26

So we kind of talked about this before, like when we talked previously from your perspective, someone that's outside of the United States, how do you see, how do you view racism in the US from the UK?

Dawn-Maria France :
46:42

In the US it feels more like in the US people will tell you that they don't want. They don't want you in the company, the more direct it feels like, whereas in England it's all micro passive aggressive where you know. You know that they know they're being racist, but it's hard to prove it. But it looks like in America they're in your face so you actually know that they don't need, they don't want you in their company or whatever. Whereas in this country, like for example, years ago, I phoned up for a job but obviously I've got very British voice, but then when I turned up the man was so disappointed to see that this voice belong to this colour that I knew straight away that he had an issue with having a black person in the company. I mean, he made all the usual excuses but I knew definitely I could read the room and I knew that's one of his perception. Whereas in America I get the impression that you would know before you wasted time to actually jump through hoops to go to the interview. Is that the case or do you still? Do you have micro passive aggressive as well in the US?

Speaker 3:
48:03

I think we get the full range. I think a lot more times you'll see the micro microaggressions, like I think it's a pretty new thing for people to kind of speak their mind Like oh, we don't like black people, like that's more, like I mean, I feel like it's always been there, because you think about the way that the United States was born, they like it's always been that you know, like slavery and then, like you know, like our civil rights movement over here. So it's always been kind of a thing. You know, like you could die from being this color. That's far. I don't know if that's like, if that happens outside of here, but over here it's like you get caught in the wrong spot, like, especially back during the civil rights movement day, you would die and you wouldn't hear anything about anything like that. But now it's a. You know most people want to say it to your face like that, but it's levels Like it really, like you see, like microaggressions most of the time and then, depending on where you go, it gets more aggressive and more overt than other times. So I was curious to see, just because I wonder how, because you know, when you're not in a place, just like I'm not in England, like you know. Like all I know to go by is all of the all the English shows that I watch or anything that comes in the news, and you know the type of stuff that's in the news isn't always the thing that really accentuates what a country is like, or like a country, a state, a city or anything. So I was just really curious to see like what like from outside someone that's outside of the United States how they view racism in the United States.

Richard Dodds:
49:48

I had somebody. I oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Dawn-Maria France :
49:53

No, I always got the impression that you were more direct. Because in England, because it's micro and passive aggressive, it's almost like a game. I always I find the micro, passive aggressive is clever racism. So my parents, they were told that interviews we don't want you because you're black and we don't want a black person in this company. They were told that to the face until the race relation act came in where they knew they couldn't say it directly because it was against the law. But now I would have to go for the interview. They know they don't want to take me because of my color, but they let me go through the interview. They let me go through the panel, they let me waste time knowing they don't want to give you the job because you are black. So you're almost having to play mind games and sometimes I feel like my color goes into the room first and then I have to fight all the nonsense, all the racism and all the stereotypes afterwards. So it's like my color walks in front of me and then I have to knock down any of their perceived perceptions. And sometimes it is quite tiring because you think I'd hoped at this point in life, with so many families being blended families, that it would be a lot easier because a lot of people are now in mixed families, whether that's a white person with a black person or vice versa, or someone who's black with an Asian, so it's quite blended but we're still going through the same nonsense that was happening before. A lot of families got blended and I think I'm quite looking away because my partner's black. So when these things present, I can talk to someone who looks like me, who gets it, and I can have those conversations because he knows what I'm talking about and I feel that gives me strength in that respect. And I think sometimes you've got to have the strength not to let people's perception harm you, so you kind of have to look after yourself, make sure that you've got some resilience, be able to self-care as a shield of protection, just to protect your own mental health and to give you strength and clarity. So there is this saying by Gandhi and I'm just going to paraphrase it, but it's something that I live by. So Gandhi said don't let people with dirty feet walk in your head, and that's what I live by. I won't allow anyone with their dirty feet to walk in my head to allow me to find myself in crisis. So that keeps me strong, keeps me guarded, keeps me centered, and I make sure that I look after my own self-care and make sure that I know that the ancestors that were before me has given me the strength to go on, and I'm just carrying on with their work. So I think, as black people, we do need to find that solace that keeps us strong and not to allow outside influences to bring us down. But it is a hard task to carry because you're having to carry it all the time. But I think you need to self-care, be good to yourself and be kind to yourself and not allow other people's ideology or thoughts about you affect you in any way, because the best way to win the enemy is to live your best life is to be good to yourself.

Speaker 3:
53:31

That was so well said. That was so well said. I have nothing to follow that up with, other than it's been a pleasure talking to you.

Dawn-Maria France :
53:41

And you, richard. It's been a delight and I'm glad that you've been inviting me onto your podcast. I feel very honored to be on your show.

Richard Dodds:
53:50

Thanks for coming. Thank you Again. I'd like to thank Dymarita for coming on the show. You can find out more information about her in the show notes. Still Talking Black is a Crown Culture Media LLC production. You can find out more about it at StillTalkingBlackcom. But until next time, keep Talking.