Absolutely nothing will grind my gears more than seeing Black and Brown people mourn or try to police other Black or Brown people into feeling some sort of sorrow for the death of Britain’s late queen. Nothing will aggravate me more than seeing people jump through all sorts of hoops trying to explain how the monarchy was somewhat beneficial to the third world. But here we are surrounded by the most obscene displays of respectability politics.
I am trying my best not to be overly annoyed by people’s pity party for a woman who was once part of an institution with a bloody past, which also happens to continue to disassociate itself from full accountability. But if I am to be honest, I, too, once looked at the monarchy in absolute awe as a child growing up. I remember attending Mae’s School as a young girl and being put into neat lines along a main street to shout, “Do Stop” when the cars transporting royal visitors drove by.
The allure of the prince and princess fairy tales you heard as a child didn’t help either. It was easy for one to feel that the whole pageantry of it all was something to aspire to. I remember excitement at receiving presents from an older sibling who was studying in England at the time. When the Spice Girls movie came out, we were first among our friends to have it but unfortunately the VHS tape wasn’t compatible with the player we had. We kept it like a prized possession despite being unable to watch it. We were taught superiority through British made consumption. American goods never had the same impact. Even up to this very day we see how consciously and unconsciously we are quickly ushered into appeasing all things British. Honestly, why does a former colony have to observe a day of public mourning for a former oppressor? Why must we continue to be hell bent on toeing the line?
One simply cannot separate Britain’s late queen from the monarchy; her very duty was to embody it. One simply can’t say that because she didn’t rule under a time when slavery was ongoing makes her somewhat innocent. It was during her reign that a whole host of countries were still colonies. The road to independence was drenched with barbaric counter-insurgency, Guyana not being exempted from such but yet we call her graceful and sweet because she drank tea and petted her corgis.
Even through her pet project the Commonwealth, to ensure influence, calls for reparations have gone unanswered and the best of jewels from former colonies which her institution plundered continue to be shown off and advertised as if it’s not one of the most grotesque displays of human indecency.
What the British monarchy did was brutal and inhumane; the genocide, the exploitation, the theft of property, yet we still find ways to excuse it, kindly humanize human trafficking, and social impact its rule has on us up until this very day. This is a special type of twilight zone; one that we must find a way to escape because truly no one is really free until that happens.
