Security concerns are one of Britain’s favourite euphemisms.
They sit neatly alongside “community tensions,” “unfortunate incidents,” and “lessons will be learned” in the national museum of phrases designed to avoid saying the thing that actually happened. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the coverage of the Sussex family, where “security concerns” has become a polite way of saying “racism,” without ever having to use the word.
The dance goes like this. Meghan and Harry face threats. The threats are racialised, the hostility is documented, the danger is real. But instead of saying so plainly, the Palace-Press machine reaches for the soft cushion of “security concerns,” as though the problem were a faulty lock rather than a decade of racist abuse.
This habit has deep cultural roots. Britain has always preferred euphemism to honesty, especially when the honesty would require confronting racism. It’s why the Windrush scandal was described as “a failure of process,” and why racist abuse of sportsmen and women becomes “inappropriate behaviour,” MP Diane Abbott's experience shows how readily explicitly racist and sexist threats can be absorbed into the bland category of ‘online abuse’. The language is softened until the racism disappears, leaving behind a tidy administrative problem that can be handled by a committee. Racism becomes paperwork.
The Sussexes’ experience is the most high‑profile example. When Archie and Lilibet were pulled out of their new school after two days, the press dutifully reported “security concerns,” as though the danger were a rogue parking situation rather than the racialised threats that have followed their mother for ten years. When RAVEC demands detailed “patterns of life” to assess Meghan’s risk level, the coverage frames it as a technical matter, not a response to misogynoir - the specific mix of racism and sexism directed at Black women. When Harry fights for police protection, the headlines talk about “protocol,” not the fact that his family is targeted in ways that white royals simply aren’t.
The euphemism does three things at once.
First, of course, it hides the racism, allowing the public to imagine that Meghan is simply “overreacting” to paparazzi rather than responding to credible threats. Second, it shifts responsibility away from society and onto security teams, turning racism into a logistical issue rather than a moral one. And third, it makes Meghan herself seem like the problem - dramatic, demanding, difficult - because the real danger has been politely erased.
This is a cultural reflex. Britain has spent centuries perfecting the art of saying something without saying it, especially when the subject is race. It’s the same instinct that makes people say “racially charged” instead of “racist.” It’s a national commitment to “politeness” so intense that it borders on farce. If Britain could apologise to racism itself for making a bit of a fuss about it all, we probably would.
Euphemisms protect institutions, not people. They allow the monarchy to avoid acknowledging the racialised hostility Meghan faced. They allow newspapers to report threats without ever admitting their own role in stoking them. They allow the public to stay comfortable, because the truth, that a mixed‑race duchess has been targeted for a decade, is a tad awkward for Britain’s self‑image as a tolerant, post‑racial nation.
And so “security concerns” becomes a kind of national lullaby. It soothes and reassures. It keeps everything tidy. But it also obscures the reality that Meghan’s safety issues aren’t random, not mysterious, and not neutral. They’re the predictable result of racism, amplified by misogyny, and intensified by institutions that prefer silence to accountability.
But we Brits prefer to pretend that “security concerns” are just part of royal life … even when the threats are racialised. We’d rather treat Meghan’s need for protection as excessive … and continue to conceal the cause of that need behind euphemism.
The truth, when spoken plainly, is simple. Meghan faces racist hostility. Her children face racist hostility. Her husband fights for protection because the threats are real.
And Britain, in its very British way, would rather call this “security concerns” than admit what it actually is.
Exclusive to members: