MSNBC guest claims Queen Elizabeth symbolized ‘White supremacy’: ‘Not sure why I should be sad today’
Birmingham City University professor Kehinde Andrews told MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi that he wasn’t sad about the passing of Queen Elizabeth II because she represented "White supremacy" and "colonialism."
Birmingham City University professor Kehinde Andrews claims he does not mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II because she is the "manifestation of the institutional racism that we have to encounter on a daily basis."
The British professor of African descent made his remarks in a Tuesday op-ed for Politico Magazine, titled, "I Don’t Mourn The Queen." Andrews spoke of the racism Queen Elizabeth II represented throughout the world, which prompted in him a feeling of "detachment" upon hearing of her death.
Andrews claimed he has been so affected by the racism and oppression represented by the British crown, that he won’t even go into a pub if it is "flying a British flag outside." He added that he ultimately feels "alienated" from Britain because of this history of racism.
Andrews opened his piece by describing how unaffected he and his family were by the Queen’s death last Thursday, writing, "Whilst the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death sparked concern, sadness and even panic in many of my white colleagues at work last week, I looked on mostly bemused. I am not alone in this feeling of detachment; most of my Black family and friends here feel the same."
The photo used by the royal family to announce Queen Elizabeth II's death. (Royal Collection Trust/Estate of Jane Bown)
He explained, "For the children of the British empire, those of us who were born here and those of us who were born in the 15 nations of the ‘commonwealth,’ the Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy. She may have been seen as an institution but for us, she was the manifestation of the institutional racism that we have to encounter on a daily basis."
Applying to himself the notion of "double-consciousness" that African American thinker W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about as being both Black and American in the early twentieth century, Andrews wrote, "To be Black and in Britain also means grappling with double-consciousness."
He added, "The only real difference between Black Brits and Black Americans is that Britain offshored its racist violence to the colonies. This meant that Britain could believe the mirage that the nation did not have the same racial problems as the U.S., which enslaved millions of Africans within its own borders."
"But you cannot detach Britain from its empire; the colonies were just as, if not more, important to making the nation ‘great’ as anything that took place on these shores," he declared.
QUEEN ELIZABETH THROUGH THE YEARS
Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral will be held Sept. 19 at Westminster Abbey. (Alastair Grant - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Andrews’ piece attacked the claim that Elizabeth II did not participate in or at least wound down British colonialism. "Queen Elizabeth II may have been on the throne to witness the dismantling of the empire. But she was also monarch for the brutal subjection of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the fifties... And she was Queen when the government supported the Nigerian suppression of the Biafran separatists."
The professor explained the latter event as one "that led to a million children starving to death in the late 60s."
Andrews noted that while his Jamaican grandmother "was raised on the fairy tales" of British royalty," his father felt "the cold realities of British racism and could never feel any warmth to either the nation or its figure head."
"For my parents, the Queen came to symbolize the racist ills of the country. Their generation was hounded in the streets by fascists who would shout racial slurs and inflict violent assaults if they caught up with them," he claimed, adding how it has affected him. "It is no coincidence that these fascists bathed themselves in the British flag and pledged unflinching allegiance to the Queen. To this day if a pub is flying a British flag outside, I will not go inside."
He also noted, "I refuse to stand when I hear" the British national anthem and recalled how he was "instinctively uncomfortable" being forced to sing it in school. "The way the royal family treated Prince Harry and Meghan Markle only compounded those feelings," Andrews said.
Some liberals in the media have been fixated on the idea that Queen Elizabeth II represented "racism" and brutal colonialism. (Andrew Parsons / POOL / AFP)
He cited how, "until at least the late 60s, Buckingham Palace banned Black and brown people from being employed there as office workers," and noted that when the Queen used to preside over the "Commonwealth Games" in his hometown of Birmingham, England, she did it "decked out in her jewels stolen from various colonies."
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The harsh critique of Elizabeth II ended with Andrews calling for the abolition of the monarchy. "Abolishing the monarchy is long overdue. Now might be an opportunity because the Queen was so popular, and the Commonwealth countries are definitely not all keen on Charles."
Professor Andrews concluded, writing, "So, the majority of the nation is mourning the symbol, not the woman, and this is precisely why so many of us will spend the next several weeks in a state of Du Bois’s double-consciousness — once again feeling alienated from Britain because of our experiences of being Black."
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