-
sponsorship
Prince Harry, the spare to Charles' heir who thinks a swastika armband is a great costume-party accessory, is a precious gift to the British press. Nothing sells papers (and provides columnists with fun fodder) like a racist-epithet-spewing royal. So, when a video surfaced in which Prince Harry was caught calling a fellow army officer cadet a "Paki" and telling a soldier who had swathed his helmet in camouflage netting that he looked "like a raghead," the papers ordered extra ink. Most opinion writers gave him well-deserved guff for his racist remarks, and the prince made the now-familiar nonapology, saying he "is extremely sorry for any offense his words might cause." In Tuesday's New York Times, John F. Burns summarizes the story nicely.
Except that, as in most of the English papers, Burns neglects to mention another slur that the prince didn't even acknowledge or apologize for. The video also caught him asking a member of his squad some questions after an exercise: ""[I want to hear about] your ups and downs in the exercise. Highs and lows. ... Good points, bad points. How do you feel? Gay? Queer on the side?"
Now, that isn't as openly offensive as the P and the R words, but Harry's casual homophobia certainly doesn't express solidarity with the gay and lesbian soldiers serving in the British military.
Harry is a vile, one-man ad for republicanism, but the press doesn't seem to be all that sensitive, either.