A lot of people still aren’t over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s successful Nigerian tour. Those people are so mad that Harry and Meghan didn’t wander around in colonialist cosplay or treat Nigerians as “beneath” them. Those people are mad that Nigeria went out of their way to honor both Meghan and Harry, and that the Sussexes in turn highlighted a vibrant and modern African country (and probably caused a significant tourism bump too).
One of the dumb criticisms I saw was that Meghan showed too much skin. She wore sundresses in 90-degree-plus weather for more casual events involving kids, and at the big dinner event, she wore a simple strapless dress. Many of the women around the Sussexes at those events were dressed similarly, and absolutely no one in Nigeria was like “Meghan is dressed inappropriately.” And yet the dumbass criticism is still percolating, to the point where the Daily Mail is trying to use Nigeria’s First Lady to drag Meghan.
The First Lady of Nigeria has warned the country’s women not to ‘lose who they are’ in a speech given shortly after Meghan Markle’s visit where she also slammed the ‘nakedness’ of US celebrities. Speaking at an event in Abuja to mark the first year of her husband’s administration, the wife of President Bola Tinubu urged its teenagers and young people to dress more demurely and not ‘try to emulate film stars from America’.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu, who is nicknamed ‘mummy’ by some Nigerian citizens, said: ‘We have to salvage our children. We see the way they dress. We are not having the Met Gala. And everyone, the nakedness, is just everywhere and the men are well-clothed. So we have to do something. Tell them we don’t accept nakedness in our culture. That is not beautiful. It’s not beautiful at all’.
The First Lady did name Meghan in her speech but was not criticising the Duchess, who met with young women herself in the West African nation on Saturday two weeks ago where she called Nigeria ‘my country’ and announced she is 43% Nigerian. In her own message to Nigeria’s women on Saturday in the wake of Harry and Meghan’s cultural visit to also promote Invictus, Senator Tinubu said: ‘They do not want to mimic and try to emulate film stars from America. They don’t know where they come from. Why did Meghan [Markle] come here looking for Africa? That is something we have to take home with [us]. We know who we are. Don’t lose who you are’.
Meghan and Harry’s trip to Nigeria was hailed as a success but the Duchess of Sussex has faced some disapproval from some experts over her ultra-expensive choice of clothing on her ‘faux royal tour’ with Prince Harry this month in a country with high unemployment and poverty.
“And everyone, the nakedness, is just everywhere and the men are well-clothed.” This is sort of my thing too – while I think everyone should be able to dress however they want, I hate when a red carpet or event is full of scantily-clad women while men are wearing suits. As for the rest of it… she wasn’t bashing Meghan, she used Meghan as an example of the right kind of woman who looks as Nigeria as her home. Oluremi Tinubu’s message was prudish, scolding and motherly but again, the Daily Mail is just desperate to make it sound like Meghan was being criticized (and she wasn’t).
Photos courtesy of Getty.
But there are cultures in Nigeria that celebrate nudity and see the body as beautiful. Her speech was supposed to be praising women, so why the necessity to bring any other women down for something as unimportant as dress? She is Christian and has the right to express her beliefs in her chosen style of dress; she needs to allow others to express their own choices and beliefs.
Before the colonizers came to Africa, we had our own cultures and norms. Some of those cultures included having absolutely no clothes or just wrapping a small backcloth loin around one’s waist. And even up to today, there are still many tribes, not only in Nigeria but also in other regions of our continent where nudity or scantily clothed is still practiced for example: The Kambari, the Himba, the San, the Karamajong, the Mbuti, the Zulu, Masai just to name a few. “Normal clothing” was an idea brought to our lands by colonizers that then deemed our ways, cultures and norms “satanic/demonic” and theirs the only ways acceptable. So, Mrs Jagaban, even though unintentional, was pushing/projecting colonizer cultural norms on POC. Religion and the “religious ways of dress”, you know, covering one’s whole body etc, etc, was brought to us by colonizers.
With that being said, the BM is still salty about the fact that they were not given enough time to apply for visas to Nigeria and that they were totally excluded from this trip so they are doing everything they can, using every trick in their hat, to make this trip into something it really wasn’t. Anyone, even a BM fool, and their cousin that listened to that first lady’s speech knows or can tell that her mention of Madam Duchess was absolutely not in the context of clothing or nudity or whatever but was in the context of taking pride in knowing where one comes from.
But I think she has a point: a culture where the men are all clothed and the women are naked…that says something about the culture – about women’s role in that culture. It doesn’t say anything about individual women since they aren’t dressing as individuals.
Men are in this strange spot of both having less pressure to be sexy and having less of a reason to want to rebel against sexual modesty in the first place. Both of those play into why we the men and the women dressing differently.
*I meant why we see the men and women dressing differently.
Meg always dresses appropriately for the events she attends. This is just the gutter press trying to bring her down it’s the racist thing they do.
Meghan’s “ultra expensive clothes in a nation with high unemployment and poverty” must surely much better suit the disappeared Kate, the PoW. Yes?
Meghan visited Nigeria for three days. And wore a few repeats as well as the gifts she received. In addition to having purchased items from a Nigerian designer.
Kate has spent decades in the most expensive clothing she could find, paid for by taxpayers, and doing less than nothing for the suffering citizens of the UK.
Pointing out the unemployment and poverty when Nigeria is part of the Commonwealth isn’t such a good look for the UK.
Kate wore a 32,000 pounds headpiece to the coronation which was held during a cost of living crisis.
The usual culprits included the cost of her jewellery and watch. Once piece they valued at over £50k. Can you imagine them doing that for the far from understated other royal women?
Nobody expects rich foreigners to wear sackcloth and ashes when they’re visiting a low-income country. The other British royals also wear expensive clothes when they visit countries in Africa. This is just more of the same old racist BS from the racist British tabloid press.
@Amy Bee: Yes!
Actually yes. Yes she did.
Huh. Who do you mean by “she” without context? Or are you just trolling?
I’m reminded of the original, deeply racist lyrics to Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ On The Ritz,” They poked fun at people of color from Harlem dressing up beyond their “station” in life, trying to mimic their betters with evening clothes they can’t afford, and succeeding only in making themselves look foolish.
Meghan’s detractors take that attitude constantly, whenever she dresses up for a social event.
Thank you for bringing attention to this long forgotten but eye-opening fact of Irving Berlin. I wonder how many other best selling and long remembered poems and songs flatly gave notice of the insidious racism of the author?
Agreed. Her outfits were modest by reasonable standards, and it would have been fine if Kate wore the same outfits too. These stan wars are silly. Not everybody is going to be reasonable though, and one thing it’s hard to learn especially as a woman is that you’re not going to please everybody-and that’s actually ok. It’s good and healthy to not have one’s expectations perfectly met all the time. It doesn’t always mean someone is being disrespected.
I took 1st ladies comment as intend d. Just her observation and opinions. Meghan was not her focus,
Exactly. I saw derangers trying to blow this up on social media but it’s all a big nothing. Meghan looked fantastic on that tour.
Exactly. The people using this as a sort of gotcha against Meghan (“See? She’s a POC and she agrees, so I’m in the right”) are acting like rightwing politicians, they are forgetting that one person doesn’t speak for an entire ethnic group or race. Americans with conservative opinions about how women should live and present themselves have a tendency to forget that. Almost as if they can’t wrap their minds around the fact that two people from the same nonwhite background can disagree. Just because you can cherry-pick and find some members of a race that agree with your latest trad take doesn’t mean that you or they are in the right, or that there aren’t also people in that culture rebelling against their message. It’s an opinion-one both echoed and challenged across the cultures, just like opinions on the institution of marriage for example.
I mean, even the British press knows that Meghan wasn’t being criticised by the First Lady. The DM says so in the third paragraph in this piece. It’s the derangers who are willfully misinterpreting what the First Lady says. In my opinion there are greater problems in Nigeria than the way women dress but that’s a debate for another time. I look forward to Kate cosplaying Meghan and her stans praising her outfit. I still remember them criticising Meghan for wearing a black suit only for Kate copy her two years later and the royalists and derangers praising her.
Meghan criticised and Kate praised for doing the same thing is par for the course.
The difference being that Meghan style is appropriate for the occasion in these diplomatic visits while Kate dresses like a femme fatale in an Agatha Christie novel.
The why did Meghan markle come here? We must take that with us.
For a second that read as shade. But I’ve been thinking about it and it sounds like this woman is so happy and proud to know her roots. Our roots. Our nation. Because we are important and our culture matters. Even to someone whose ancestors were stolen away from us long ago – we are Nigeria. And Nigeria is her home.
And also like – appreciate what you have. What brought her here. Our culture.
This is how I interpreted it. I think she’s saying to stay true to their Nigerian roots and embrace Nigerian culture, don’t try to wipe it out in favor of Hollywood or US styles – because people like Meghan are coming to Nigeria to find that culture and history, and they (Nigerians) are lucky enough to live in it.
I may be wrong but I read that as “we must stay true to our culture since that is what Meghan was seeking”. The “why did Meghan come here” means “she came here to learn about *our* culture and history so we shouldn’t try to change ourselves to look like celebrities, we should continue to be Nigeria and to welcome people learning about our home and people”.
That is exactly how I took what she meant and you said it perfectly. She wasn’t insulting Meghan, she was acknowledging how this woman who once she learned of her ancestry she came home to experience the beauty of the country, culture and people, so the young women she was speaking to should appreciate and understand how blessed they are to be Nigerians.
Anything said with Meghan’s name will be twisted by derangers. Derangers and royalist will support satan just to Spite Meghan. OldLevin even said Nigeria is a muslim country….imagine that. Everyone just totally ignored the head teacher that welcomed H and M in a perfect off shoulder chest baring ankara dress.
I hav come to terms with the fact that Meghan will always be the headache for derangers and royalist until the ends of time.
I’m of two minds about this. Clearly, the FL wasn’t speaking about Meghan. She was speaking about some of the women in her country. You only need to look at some of the Nigerian award shows to see what she’s referring to. However…….. It does seem that Meghan was a little out of step with how the other women were dressed. She stood out. Beautiful yes…but different from everyone. I think that she wore some Nigerian designers as well. Maybe in the future some research on the countries clothing traditions should be done in order to avoid any confusion. And I like that the aunties told her to wear more color………I’m glad that somebody said it.
Huh? So if you visit a foreign country, do you start dressing like the locals? At the school, the principal had on an off the shoulder top but apparently nobody noticed that. Meghan was staying true to herself which was the actual message of the First Lady.
Dress like the locals? Sometimes yes, when the situation deems it necessary and as a sign of respect. When I go to say…Dubai, I dress conservatively. Because they dress conservative. Its a sign of respect for their culture. Meghan dressed beautifully… She always does. But in this situation a simple wrap would have solved any perceived problem. Just my take on things. No one has to agree
That is exactly what the First Ladies message was, be proud of who you are. Don’t change who you are to facilitate what others want or expect of you. Meghan wore what she is comfortable wearing and incorporated what was given to her and added color when it was mentioned, but she still maintained being her true self. Meghan always researches where she is going and this trip was no different.
@Shanta: Nigeria is a secular country, there are no requirements about what women should wear. One of the dresses Meghan wore was by a Nigerian designer and people wore clothes that bore their shoulders. She didn’t need to wear a wrap.
You cannot compare this to a country where the dress code may be part of the law and not just a tradition. And the majority of the women I saw in traditional dress were older. I follow some Nigerian content creators who are younger and they wear western dress or contemporary style dresses in traditional fabrics. Plus, in some of the places the Sussexes visited, the people were working so you would expect them to have a different attire than someone who is visiting.
Meghan was dressing like the locals. Some of the locals dressed very conservatively, some did not – plenty of evidence in the pictures. Just like in any other country. Stop shaming women for not dressing ultra conservatively. Meghan was appropriately dressed for the events she attended. She wore Nigerian designers and gifts.
Shanta one thing we know is M does her research. If you want to shame someone for wearing a strapless dress then you could pick on some of the younger Nigerian women there, do they not know their culture? Comparing Nigeria to Dubai is absurd unless you take your talking points from Angela Levin. There isn’t a dress code as we’ve been told over and again.
Many of the women we saw were much older and representing their country/region etc. Meghan was entirely appropriately dressed and unlike Kate she didn’t flash at every single opportunity.
Shame someone? When exactly did I do that. I just voiced a different opinion. And I said that what she wore was beautiful….. Did I not? I didn’t say a thing about the,strapless dress…which by the way was fine. And if you read my comment again…I did not compare Nigerian culture with Dubai culture. I said that when I….meaning me…myself… When I go to Dubai which is a conservative country I… Here’s that word again… Dress conservatively. Which is my choice. Its not about a dress code….its about respect for their country which I am visiting. No one makes me do it, I do that because I want to. So you can miss me with that “taking your talking points from Angela”. That’s being deliberately obtuse. I said what I said……she did stand out because of the way that she was dressed. A simple wrap would have gone a long way. I like Meghan… But I don’t need to agree with everything in order to.support her and Harry.
The First Lady’s clothing monologue is, ime, pretty typical of the way African aunties and grandmas scold girls and young women: basically, “We don’t want our girls and young women to walk around naked like those loose Western women who sleep with just anybody.”
What she said about Meghan was absolutely -not- saying Meghan dressed wrong. The First Lady said Meghan, like other Black Americans, doesn’t know where she comes from. The First Lady is saying that (because enslavers stole Black Americans’ heritage from them) Meghan, like all Black Americans, doesn’t know where she’s from, doesn’t know her ancestral family, lineage, language, or culture. Like many Black American tourists, Meghan had to come to Nigeria to learn about it.
So the First Lady wasn’t criticizing Meghan at all. She invoked Meghan to draw a contrast. She’s saying, “Young Nigerians, be proud. Don’t emulate Americans. We have what they want. Just look at Meghan. She wants to know herself like we do.”
And this message is ok with you: “like those loose Western women who sleep with just anybody”? Hmm. I thought we were against shut shaming here. And this is even much worse, because a woman can wear revealing clothes and not sleep with anyone at all – not that anyone’s sexual history is the business of any First Lady, but it can be particularly jarring to be accused of being slutty when you’re very young and inexperienced, just because your skirt is shorter than someone’s preference.
Argh no I’m not saying that message is ok. I’m saying it’s commonplace for older, conservative women to shame younger women this way. It is, unfortunately, a thing.
My niece tells me there are some sites and Meghan fans, ( my whole family) who were not impressed by the first lady ‘s comments, especially when she happens to have daughters who I understand are models, and actually wear more skimpy clothes than Meghan. Why did she give the British more ammunition to attack Meghan. I suspect maybe the First Lady was annoyed she wasn’t invited to the women’s forum where Meghan talked to Nigerian top business women. I was actually quite sad to see the first lady ‘s speech,about American women and actresses. She might not have been ” crictising ” Meghan but I think it was an ill advised speech from the first lady. Meghan must be devastated, she looked happy to be among her kith and kin in Nigeria, it is just a shame that the first lady ‘s speech didn’t sound very welcoming.
Why would Meghan be devastated about a speech by an unpopular First Lady which isn’t really about her? Meghan is an adult, I expect by now she knows not to take everything that appears in British tabloids seriously. The Nigerian media did not report this as an attack on Meghan.
Yeah it’s not a very nice thing to say, but ime it’s a super common thing for my more conservative relatives (in another African country) to say. “In the West, women sleep around before marriage—not you, of course. We don’t want our young people to think that’s ok.”
I’m just saying it’s a thing slut-shaming conservatives say and think without realizing it reads as insulting to the actual North American women they know. (it’s also not ok to slut-shame local unmarried girls and women, many of whom who are having sex before marriage but not telling their aunties/grandmas about it.)
Slut-shaming isn’t ok, but the comments as reported don’t sound at all directed *at* Meghan.
This tour was over 2 weeks ago and they are still so desperate to find a negative spin or take on it because everyone embraced H&M and people looked sideways at Charles and William for;
1. Snubbing Harry’s half in half-in-half-out proposition when it very clearly could have worked
2. Not being able to do a tour as successfully as H&M
3. Looking cruel for snubbing Harry when he was in England for the days before the Nigeria trip
4. For letting their media mouthpieces say racist sh-t about Nigeria which is bad but worse because it is a commonwealth country that they are the heads of.
The sad thing is, this lie is the best they could come up with. smh
The usual culprits included the cost of her jewellery and watch. Once piece they valued at over £50k. Can you imagine them doing that for the far from understated other royal women?
Beth, they’re always doing that. I think it’s amusing–they include of the cost of jewelry that she wear over and over again.
They need to get a grip. Meghan can wear whatever jewelry she chooses to. They need to get a beer to cry into.
Some context here: whether or not the FL was critical or not, it should be noted that she isn’t called “Mummy” by anyone in Nigeria, and is definitely not beloved by any portion of the public. Her husband is, um, not very popular for a host of reasons I won’t get into now, and she is well known for making unhelpful statements and inserting herself in issues that don’t concern her. She lives a life of extreme wealth, largely at the expense of regular Nigerians, so keep that in mind when reading her comments. Also, nobody really listens to her, so feel free not to.
Thank you for this context. I was going to say, she sounds like just about every right-wing government in the world right now, and there are, unfortunately, many. They are all hijacking “culture” and “roots” for their faux patriotism and using that to force their conservative values on everyone. That is a very dangerous speech, IMO. It reminds me of reading Babar. I did not grow up with Babar, but my husband did and my MIL gave us a couple of books because they were supposedly so wonderful. There was one where Babar teaches animals to dress, I believe (it’s been like 15 years). I remember being horrified by the thinly veiled colonial propaganda and posted a review about it on Amazon. My God I got dragged and called names for being stupid and destroying “culture”.
> just about every right-wing government in the world right now, and there are, unfortunately, many. They are all hijacking “culture” and “roots” for their faux patriotism and using that to force their conservative values on everyone.
100% agree with this, @Jess.
Good to know. Her husband did get “elected”, though, so she has a bullhorn.
Seriously disappointing speech, from her.
One woman’s view does not diminish how wonderfully Meghan was received in Nigeria. The trip was a resounding success; however, imv, the First Lady of Nigeria’s speech is ambiguous at best, and, at worst, shady toward Meghan as an American “film actress” and as someone who came to Nigeria in search of (moral/modesty) roots. There’s so much to unpack in that speech, but the undercurrent of anti-Americanism and use of inflammatory language (“naked dress”) were deliberate. She could have made that speech without invoking Meghan to tie up her arguments in a bow. Have I mentioned that I despise morality police? FK that!!
There was a certain duchess who wore a sparkly pink full length gown outside on a nature walk during their royal tour of Jamaica, so there is no place to insult Meghan about wearing sleeveless sundresses outdoors on an Invictus Games tour of Nigeria, especially when others there were dressed similarly. Nothing Meghan wore compares to the expense and inappropriateness of what Kate wore during that tour or the red dress that she wore during a state dinner where she raised her dress to her upper thigh. There is nothing that could ever match the inappropriateness of what a future queen consort did at a state dinner with dignitaries.
I don’t honk the First Lady was insulting Meghan. It sounds as if she was pulling from their successful tour to remind young Nigerian people that this globally known woman who was hugely welcomed to their country came there because she wanted to find apart of who she is and there was obvious pride in being part of who they are.
At best, the speech is not well-written, and its clumsiness makes it ambiguous. Listening to the woman and watching her might help with interpreting what she is trying to say. A well-written speech would make its message clear. As it is, I think some of us have to do a lot of “interpreting” in order to make her message one of encouragement to young Nigerian woman. But one thing which she says that is clear to me is that Nigerian women should cover up, and not be tempted not to be covered up, because covering up is part of their culture and they should be proud to cover up, and there is no need to emulate American movie star nakedness no matter how tempted. Have I got it? At best, she is promoting cultural pride, at worst she is scolding prudish auntie. This view is rather puritanical, so whether or not it is actually Nigerian culture should be up for debate, I should think.
I think in Nigeria, like any culture there will be tension between the old and the new. I remember my grandmother, who was a young woman during the flapper era, telling me how that type of dress was considered scandalous because women bared their arms and legs in public. Now we consider that ridiculous. I think the First Lady was expressing her opinion which is fine. Its when opinions are codified into law that it becomes dangerous.
🎯
OMG, the derangers were talking about this last night on social media. The way they talked, I thought the first lady said “F*ck you, Meghan! Don’t come here again!”. Honestly, it is just sad that there is a group of white women online that their whole life is about trying to denigrate one biracial woman who doesn’t have any effect on their life. The white supremacy is mental illness.
Why bring Meghan’s name into this @ all, so I don’t get it.
William and Kate rode around Jamaica in a f***ing LAND ROVER so I don’t want to hear about Meghan’s “expensive clothes.” Do Kate and Camilla not wear expensive designer dresses and spend thousands of pounds on clothes every time they go on a trip, regardless of how much money their Commonwealth partners have? They see all that s**t as aspirational. The British press will make up anything to be outraged about.
so Meghan has faced criticism from experts for her ultra-expensive clothing whilst visiting a country with high unemployment and poverty. William will be taking his Earthshot ceremony to South Africa, a country that also has high unemployment and poverty.
MikeB, now you’re just being logical. Oh, silly you! /s
The Nigerian First Lady has a daughter who is a model & LGBTQ Rights advocate who wears very short shorts, bra style tops and shirts that expose her entire tummy and cleavage. To me this sounds like a family issue she is publicly having with her daughter.
what I think the first Lady of Nigeria is saying-she telling the Nigerian child and the future kids to stay within their culture and respect the norms of their forefathers and mothers-she does not want them to follow celebs or any one else-when I saw some pictures of her daughter performing I knew why she felt this way-she does not want them to lose who they are because AA in America are rootless because of the slave trade which cut them off from their African culture.she was not criticizing anyone outside the Nigerian society