CNN host Don Lemon 'shocked' by this line from Meghan Markle's latest interview

CNN host Don Lemon has expressed "shock" about Meghan Markle's admitting that she only recently started to "'understand what it's like to be a Black woman."

On Wednesday (31 August), Lemon chatted with fellow hosts Brianna Keilar and John Berman about his thoughts on the second episode of the Duchess of Sussex's Spotify podcast Archetypes.

Despite praising the fact that she addressed "colourism," he also said it was essential to acknowledge that she was speaking on the topic from a position of privilege, given that she 'did not have to deal with racism" until she married Prince Harry.

"In some ways, she's saying that she had privilege and so, therefore, it didn't apply to her because it never happened to her. Right?" Lemon told the hosts.

The Duchess of Sussex's comments came during Tuesday's (30 August) episode with legendary singer Mariah Carey titled "Duality of a Diva."

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Markle, whose estranged father Thomas is white and her mother, Doria, is Black, said that when Carey first came on the music scene, she thought: "Oh my gosh. Someone who looks like me. She's mixed like me."

"Because we're light-skinned, you are not treated as a Black woman. You're not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between," she told Carey before adding that more focus was centred around her race when she began to date Prince Harry.

Carey replied: "But that's an interesting thing, a mixed woman because I always thought it should be OK to say I'm mixed like it should be OK to say that, but people want you to choose."

"She was a mixed woman. People didn't really know how to react to her. They didn't know if she was Black or white, but she didn't get the full Black treatment because people weren't sure that she was, you know, Black.

"I think most African-Americans probably looked at her and said, 'oh, I know that's a Black woman,' but I think the larger culture may not have realised that," he noted.

Lemon also noted that it was "interesting' that Markle and Carey had shared a similar experience, saying that he remembered when the singer came onto the scene in the 1990s. "People didn't know what to do with her," he said.

"Do they market her as a Black woman? Do they market her as a mixed woman? Do they or as a white woman? They didn't really know how to do it," he recounted.

Lemon further noted that he thought the podcast was "eye-opening." And despite commending Markle for "going there" on the topic, it's "shocking that at 30-some years of age," she just now knows what it's like to be a Black woman in the US.

"It's a bit surprising to me," he concluded.

Watch the CNN clip below.

Don Lemon on Meghan's 'eye-opening' podcast on racewww.youtube.com

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