The meerkat is an African raccoon

According to Wikipedia,
“The meerkat (Suricata suricatta) is a small mongoose found in southern Africa.”

By contrast, and not far off,
when added to the large reptile tree (LRT, 1886+ taxa; Fig. 3) Suricata (Figs. 1, 2, 4) nests with Procyon, the North Amercan raccoon. Meerkats, raccoons and skunks are all basal to traditional mongooses and moles. So meerkats are either not far off from mongooses… or raccoons and skunks are also mongooses… or meerkats and raccoons developed in parallel on separate continents.

The last possibility seems unlikely
given that raccoons are forest and field dwellers while meerkats live in drier, sparser environments. Those different niches explain the differences between raccoons and meerkats, not the similarities.

Suricata suricatta
(Desmarest 1804) is the extant meerkat from South Africa and a sister to the North American raccoon Procyon. The two continents split in the Cretaceous, 110 mya, so these basal carnivorans were present when that happened, as in the separation of toucans and hornbills when the Atlantic appeared. The postorbital bar is complete, as in primates. The medial fingers and toes are absent, leaving only four long-clawed digits per extremity.

Traditional thinking
posits a radiation of mammals only after the K-T extinction event. The LRT documents one radiation of tree shrews and basal carnivorans through rodents (including primates and multituberculates) prior to the K-T extinction event. Many bear litters of tiny, helpless young, like their marsupial ancestors. More derived, largely herbivorous placentals produce one, larger, more fully-developed young able to follow their mother shortly after birth. These appear to be all post K-T placentals.

References
Desmarest AG 1804. “Genre Surikate, Suricata Nob.”. In Deterville, J. F. P. (ed.). Nouveau dictionnaire d’histoire naturelle appliquée aux arts : principalement à l’agriculture et à l’économie rurale et domestique. 24. Paris: Deterville. p. 15.

wiki/Procyon
wiki/Striped_skunk
wiki/Meerkat