{"id":843,"date":"2020-06-05T12:37:36","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T02:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=173789"},"modified":"2020-11-01T22:55:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T22:55:30","slug":"meghan-markle-addresses-george-floyd-death","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/meghan-markle-addresses-george-floyd-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The People\u2019s Duchess: Meghan Markle Has Spoken About George Floyd\u2019s Death"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cI realised the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.\u201d Meghan Markle has delivered an impassioned speech to the graduating class of 2020 at her old high school, Immaculate Heart High School in Los Feliz in California. In it, she addressed the death of George Floyd, the 46-year-old man who was brutally murdered by a white police office in Minneapolis last week \u2013 and whose passing has sparked calls for justice all over the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what to say to you. I wanted to say the right thing and I was really nervous that I wouldn\u2019t or that it would get picked apart and I realised that the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing,\u201d she began. \u201cBecause George Floyd\u2019s life mattered and Breonna Taylor\u2019s life mattered and Philando Castile\u2019s life mattered\u2026 and so do so many other people\u2019s names we know and do not know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recalling the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles in 1992 \u2013 scenes which Markle remembers (then a sophomore student) as strikingly similar to today\u2019s George Floyd protests \u2013 the Duchess apologised to the young people before her. \u201cI am sorry. I am so sorry that you have to grow up in a world where this is still present,\u201d she said. \u201cI am sorry we have not gotten the world to a place that you deserve it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:WHAT WE\u2019RE WATCHING: WHY IT\u2019S TIME WE REVISIT AVA DUVERNAY\u2019S \u201cSELMA\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the graduation that you envisioned, and this is not the celebration you imagined but I also know there is a way for us to reframe this for you and to not see this as the end of something… but as the beginning of you harnessing all of the work, all of the values, all of the skills that you have embodied over the last four years and now you channel that. Now all of that work gets activated, now you get to be a part of that rebuilding… I am already excited for what you are going to do in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the full 6-minute video here.<\/p>\n

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Meghan Markle\u2019s tribute to the 2020 graduating class of her high school addressed George Floyd\u2019s death and her memories of growing up in LA during the Rodney King riots. \u201cI realised the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.\u201d #MeghanMarkle #BlackLivesMatter<\/a><\/p>\n

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