LONDON — There were quiet rumblings in the press when they first started dating, a whiff of snobbery: Meghan Markle — half black, American, divorced, actress — was a curiosity. Perhaps it was a phase. There were comparisons to previous girlfriends, all of whom had been waifish blue-blooded blondes. There was a half-sister wheeled out, who declared Ms. Markle’s past behavior to be “not fitting for a royal family member” and pitched a tell-all book to publishers. All of it came with the implication that Ms. Markle was an unlikely candidate to be taken seriously. She would never join the House of Windsor.

And yet, she will. In an announcement that went out Monday morning, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales declared that Ms. Markle would marry Prince Harry in the spring. In the era of Brexit and Donald Trump — a time when we’ve seen an increase in racially motivated crimes, hateful rhetoric and fear mongering — Prince Harry’s union with Ms. Markle is not only a bold antidote, it’s astonishingly political (even if Ms. Markle, who has previously discussed the complexity of her identity as a mixed-race woman and says she has found the conversation about her race “disheartening,” may not view it as such).

Admittedly, for the most part, until recently I’d been indifferent to the monarchy. It felt old-fashioned, an archaic and exclusive institution people of color couldn’t really connect with nor would feel particularly invested in, given its long historical association with colonial projects.