Meghan Markle (who now goes by Sussex instead of her maiden name) has been accused of racism towards Indian-origin actor and comedian Mindy Kaling. Social media users accused the Duchess of Sussex of pretending not to understand what Mindy was saying after the actor-producer mispronounced the word “look” as “lewk.”
Mindy Kaling (L) appeared on an episode of Meghan Markle’s Netflix show.

The exchange was aired in episode two of Meghan’s Netflix show With Love, Meghan and has sparked outrage among Indians on the social media platform X.

Here’s what happened

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, invited Mindy Kaling to her Montecito mansion for episode 2 of her Netflix show With Love, Meghan. However, a compliment from Mindy only elicited a puzzled reaction from Meghan, who took a minute to realise what the comedian was trying to say.

“By the way Meghan, I wanna ask about your look,” Mindy told the Suits actress. She mispronounced the word “look”, eliciting a disproportionately bewildered reaction from Meghan.

“My who?” Meghan asked, forcing Mindy to again repeat “Your look.”

Meghan remained looking puzzle, prompting Mindy Kaling to once again repeat herself. “Your look, Meghan,” said the comedian.

This time, Meghan proceeded to take a lighthearted dig at Mindy’s accent and her pronunciation of the word “look” in a move that some have deemed mean and racist.

“My lewk?” asked the Duchess of Sussex. “I don’t know what you’re talking – my lewk. She likes my lewk.”

Mindy’s mispronunciation

The exchange led to accusations of racism on social media as certain people accused Meghan of intentionally pretending she could not understand Mindy’s Indian accent.

Mindy Kaling was born in India to a Tamil father and Bengali mother. Her family immigrated to the United States the year she was born. Even though she has Indian roots, Mindy grew up speaking only English at home.

“I was raised speaking English only because my parents spoke two different Indian languages, so the only language we all had in common was English,” Mindy told IANS in 2018. She said that she had to learn Hindi for her role in Ocean’s 8.

Despite this, some social media users maintained that Meghan failed to understand Mindy Kaling because of her “Hindi inflection.”

The backlash

“So there is Mindy doing the fawning over Meghan that is so obviously demanded by the script and asks her about her look ! For some weird reason the word look came out with a Hindi inflection… Watching Meghan literally humiliate Mindy over that small mispronunciation and go on about it instead of laughing & shrugging it off was really triggering for me,” an X user wrote.

“It’s basically racial bullying,” the user added in her post, which has received over 1 lakh views on X.

Several X users agreed with this take.

“Unless you are trying to teach someone, a child, foreign student of English, it is incredibly rude to correct a person’s error. Only a seriously uncouth person would do that, particularly on worldwide TV,” one person opined.

“I just saw a clip of it, it’s disgusting the way she did that! Humiliating her so-called friend. Definite mean girl behaviour, i’ve heard enough about her today to last me a year,” another viewer of the Netflix show said.

“Yes, I noticed the same thing… she made fun of her accent, I can’t believe they actually aired that piece, so passive aggressive,” an X user added.