Lots of talk of religion and "royal blood," but not a word about race in BBC's announcement of the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle."

"Their married home will be the prince's current residence Nottingham Cottage, on the grounds of Kensington Palace - where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, with Prince George and Princess Charlotte, also have an apartment," BBC reports.

Until recently, a union with Ms Markle would have ruled Prince Harry out of succeeding to the throne - due to her being a Roman Catholic. But new rules on royal succession came into force in 2015, allowing members of the Royal Family to marry a Roman Catholic and become king or queen.

The instant Prince Harry and Ms Markle are pronounced "man and wife" she will automatically become Her Royal Highness, Princess Henry of Wales. However, she does not automatically become Princess Meghan - because she is not of royal blood.

Here's a NY Post column by David Kaufman from September: "Why almost no one is talking about Meghan Markle’s race."

... Meghan Markle is black — or at least as black as our first black president, Barack Obama — born to an African-American mother and white father in Los Angeles. Yet, in stark contrast to the endless clamor surrounding Obama, there’s been surprisingly little discussion about the skin color of the world’s highest-profile potential bride.

Don’t blame the silence on Markle — who’s hardly shied away from sharing her multi-culti background....

Part of the reason for the lack of discussion around this admittedly sensitive subject may be because of what happened when the British press tried talking about her background initially: UK tabloids used terms like “gangsta,” “slave ancestors” and “crime plagued” to describe Markle, her family and her childhood neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Harry’s reaction was swift and clear — lay off. But in removing racism from the Markle story, the palace also erased race, reducing Markle to just another raven-haired pretty face rather than the African-American pioneer she actually is (and the cultural modernizer the royal family so desperately needs).....

Kaufman thinks we should talk about Markle's race. It's "a big deal — and we should say so." But the prevailing opinion seems to be something like: 1. Markle should be spoken of as the individual that she is (and we all are), 2. Talking about race is theoretically a good idea, but we're actually not very good at it, 3. We want to keep things pretty for Harry and Meghan (because that makes us feel good), 4. Even if Markle has already spoken about race, it remains her prerogative to decide just how much her race will be talked about, and 5. It's not like Obama, because he was a politician, and millions of people were deciding whether to merge our identity with his, but Meghan and Harry are getting married and it's (mostly) about them deciding to devote themselves to each other.