by Akim Reinhardt

I have lived my entire life, all 54 years of it, in the United States. Not once have I ever met anyone who cares about the British monarchy. I mean really cares, beyond the fleeting and shallow passions of celebrity gossip, and even that has been rare. This is not to say that I and mine are fully representative of America. Of course not. In a nation so thoroughly segregated along racial and class lines, I, like most Americans, swim in demographic eddies swirling aside the main currents. So even though they might be circling elsewhere, I don’t doubt there are scads of Americans enthralled with the British royals. It almost seems inevitable given the endless popularity of mediocre British soap operas that some Yanks mistake for high art.

But that’s really the crux of it. To be enamored with the royals is fundamentally no different than tracking the inane posturings of the Kardashian/Jenner clan. The main difference, perhaps, is that the American “royals” are far more obsessed with their physical bodies, while the British royals seem to be quite a bit more racist. Not a one of them in either camp has ever publicly uttered a single word that impressed me. So what, exactly is the attraction? Read more »