- ‘I take deep offense at the notion that the oppressed and survivors of violence have to somehow be deferential or respectful when their oppressors die,’ says Uju Anya
- She cited the ‘colonization’ and ‘enslavement’ of peoples in both regions where her ancestors came from as reasons for her hatred of the monarchy
- Anya was backed up by Zoé Samudzi, a Zimbabwean American photography professor at the Rhode Island School of Design
- Eugene Scott, a National Politics Reporter for the Washington Post, also asked when the ‘appropriate time’ would be to talk about colonialism
While the UK continues to reel from the death of Queen Elizabeth II, renewed attacks on the former monarch continues as U.S. University of Michigan education professor even compared the monarchy to the Confederacy in the United States.
‘Telling the colonized how they should feel about their colonizer’s health and wellness is like telling my people that we ought to worship the Confederacy,’ Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, an associate professor of education, tweeted on Thursday.
‘”Respect the dead” when we’re all writing these tweets *in English*,’ she continued. ‘How did that happen, hm? We just chose this language?’
Following backlash for the tweet, she later added: ‘You don’t see me dancing on anyone’s grave because my ancestors’ enslaver removed us in the 18th Century. You also don’t see me policing other people’s emotions.’
Meanwhile, Eugene Scott, a national politics reporter for the Washington Post asked: ‘Real question for the “now is not the appropriate time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism” crowd: When is the appropriate time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism?’
And American filmmaker Boots Riley tweeted about the Queen’s death on Thursday, writing: ‘The matriarch of a royal family legacy of slave-trading, imperialism, colonialism, theft, symbol of opulence and mascot for the ruling class is dead.
‘The media will now parade the queen’s zombie ass in front of u while telling u that overthrowing capitalism is not what we need.’
Their tweets come after Nigerian-born Carnegie Mellon University professor Uju Anya sparked outrage by wishing the Queen an ‘excruciatingly painful’ death, only to later rebrand the monarch’s reign as ‘violent.’
Uju Anya made the remarks in an interview with NBC News‘ website on Thursday, saying: ‘There are people literally around the world, rejoicing at this woman’s death, not because they’re vile or cold, but because her reign and the reign of her monarchy by extension was violent.
She went on to slam those who’d condemned her tweets, adding: ‘I take deep offense at the notion that the oppressed and survivors of violence have to somehow be deferential or respectful when their oppressors die.’
Anya, 46, explained that her mother was born in Trinidad and her father in Nigeria, eventually meeting in England in 1950s, having been sent there to go to school.
She described herself as a ‘child of colonization.’
She added: ‘In addition to the colonization on the side of Nigeria, there’s also the human enslavement in the Caribbean. So there’s a direct lineage that I have to not just people who were colonized, but also people who were enslaved by the British.’
Anya was backed up by Zoé Samudzi, a Zimbabwean American photography professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, who tweeted her own outrageous statement about the late royal.
She said: ‘As the first generation of my family not born in a British colony, I would dance on the graves of every member of the royal family if given the opportunity, especially hers.’
The Nigerian-born professor also said that she takes ‘deep offense at the notion that the oppressed and survivors of violence have to somehow be deferential or respectful when their oppressors die.’
Though Queen Elizabeth II has ruled a post-colonial Britain, there have been calls from some to confront the monarchy’s past and, as Anya puts it, their continued attempts to ‘meddle in African affairs.’
Anya was backed up by Zoé Samudzi, a Zimbabwean American photography professor at the Rhode Island School of Design
In her first controversial tweet – now deleted by the social media platform – the professor wrote: ‘I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.’
‘That wretched woman and her bloodthirsty throne have f***** generations of my ancestors on both sides of the family, and she supervised a government that sponsored the genocide my parents and siblings survived. May she die in agony.’
Twitter later removed the posts for violating their rules.
Anya’s appalling sentiment, shared as the Queen was in her final hours, has ignited a firestorm of anger, and cast a light on previous attempts by hundreds of people to get the outspoken academic fired from her teaching job for violent and racist words.
The university has so far refused to punish its professor, and said in a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday evening ‘We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her social media account.’
‘Free expression is core to the mission of higher education,’ they said, indicating Anya would not see consequences for her tweet.
‘However, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster,’ they concluded.
Meanwhile, during Friday’s installment of ABC’s The View, co-host Sunny Hostin said: ‘If you really think about what the monarchy was built on, it was built on the backs of black and brown people.’
She took particular issue with the Imperial State Crown and the Queen’s scepter.
‘She wore a crown with pillaged stones from India and Africa,’ Hostin added.
‘And now what you’re seeing, at least in the black communities that I’m a part of, they want reparation.
The Imperial State Crown, along with a sceptre, serves as the principal crown for the British monarch. The Queen was pictured at her coronation in 1953 with the sceptre and bejeweled crown
The Koh-i-noor diamond from India sits atop the crown made for the Queen Mother in 1937 and the Great Star of Africa sits in the Queen’s scepter.
The Imperial State Crown, along with a scepter, serves as the principal crown for the British monarch, with the Koh-i-noor being part of the Treaty of Lahore.
Many people have claimed ownership over the Great Star of Africa over the centuries including Mughal emperors, shahs of Iran, emirs of Afghanistan, and Sikh maharajas.
Her Majesty died Thursday at the age of 96. She passed away surrounded by members of the Royal Family at Balmoral Castle, Scotland.
The above story was from a piece originally published in Daily Mail (UK)
