Lack of Nonwhite Guards for Queen Concerns Prince

When the colors were trooped for his mother’s official birthday, there were few if any black faces to be seen among the parading guardsmen--and it apparently has upset Prince Charles.

News reports Monday said that the prince, heir to the British throne, had expressed “serious concern” about discrimination against blacks in the Brigade of Guards and the Household Cavalry, Queen Elizabeth II’s military escorts.

The alleged “whites-only” policy has been one of Charles’s pet complaints for several years and surfaced again when, according to witnesses, there were no blacks among the more than 2,000 guardsmen at Saturday’s Trooping of the Color for the queen.

It was her official birthday, an event celebrated by her personal reviewing of the various brigades of guardsmen, who also pull regular military duty such as postings in Northern Ireland and with Britain’s Army of the Rhine.

Buckingham Palace declined comment on reports of the prince’s anger over the issue.

“This is entirely a matter for the army,” said a palace spokesman.

An army spokesman insisted that despite the whites-only appearance of the weekend ceremonial lineup, “the army considers itself color-blind.”

But the Observer newspaper quoted one senior guards noncommissioned officer as saying, “There are no blacks in the guards. There have never been and there never will be.”