Now that Meghan Markle has cast aside her role as a senior member of the Royal Family to pursue a life in the United States, the former actress advised young women to fight against racism and gender inequality.
Giving the keynote speech at the Girl Up Leadership Summit, Markle commended the “young women around the world who aren’t just poised to change the world, but have already begun changing the world.”
“Your generation is often referred to as digital natives, and you understand that our online world has the power to affirm and support as much as it does to harm. We are not meant to be breaking each other down; we are meant to be building each other up,” she said in the video message, as reported by Fox News.
“So use your voice both on- and offline to do just that – build each other up, support each other,” she continued. “There will always be negative voices and sometimes those voices can appear to be outsized, and sometimes they can appear to be painfully loud. You can and will use your own voices to drown out the noise. Because that’s what it is – just noise. But your voices are those of truth. And hope. And your voices can and should be much louder.”
Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, Markle told the women to do more than just believe in equality.
“I know you have already done so much and made so many people’s lives better. The moment we are living through right now asks all of us to do more,” she said. “It’s a moment where your voices, and your action, have never been more urgently needed.”
“Believing in true equality is not enough – it’s going to take more than belief, we have to work for it every day, even when it’s hard and even when it makes others feel uneasy,” she continued. “We have to speak up for ourselves and we have to speak out for others who struggle to be heard.”
"This is a humanity that desperately needs you."
The Duchess of Sussex is taking part in the @GirlUp Leadership Summit, a gender equality initiative founded by the UN Foundation to help support UN agencies that focus on adolescent girls.
Read more here: https://t.co/gXVU8AgSZv pic.twitter.com/AXPNIgCWQ8
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) July 14, 2020
Both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle waded into politics this month when they called upon Britain to reckon with its colonial past during a video meeting with young people from across the British Commonwealth.
“There is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past,” Harry said with Meghan Markle at his side.
“We’re going to have to be a little uncomfortable right now because it’s only in pushing through that discomfort that we get to the other side of this,” added Markle. “It’s not just in the big moments, it’s in the quiet moments where racism and unconscious bias lies and thrives.”
“There is no turning back now, everything is coming to a head,” Harry concluded. “Solutions exist and change is happening far quicker than it ever has done before.”
In late-March of this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic kicked into high gear, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex officially ended their roles as senior members of the Royal Family in order to carve out a “progressive role” in the institution. In a statement, the pair said they will consider how best to contribute to this “global shift.”