Thousands of university professors have signed an open letter in support of Carnegie Mellon University professor Uju Anya, who called Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II a “wretched woman” and a “genocidal coloniser,” adding, “may her pain be excruciating,” in response to news of the Queen’s deteriorating health just before her death last week.
The professors expanded on Anya’s remarks in their letter, writing that Queen Elizabeth II sat “on a throne of Indigenous and Black blood, embedded in the overall legacy of the British monarchy,” and that “her actual government presided over and directly facilitated the genocide that Dr Anya’s parents and siblings barely survived.”
“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying,” Professor Anya tweeted. May her pain be excruciating.”
“That wretched woman and her bloodthirsty throne have fucked generations of my ancestors on both sides of the family, and she supervised a government that sponsored the genocide my parents and siblings survived,” the professor continued in a follow-up tweet. “May she die in agony.”
“Dr Anya tweeted her feelings about the queen’s death,” the letter stated. “Dr Anya expressed her pain on her personal Twitter account as a Black woman born in Nigeria, whose family has been directly harmed by the insidious effects of British imperialism, genocide, and white supremacy.”
The letter was written by professors Chelsey R. Carter of Yale University, Nelson Flores of the University of Pennsylvania, Sirry Alang of the University of Pittsburgh, Crystal M. Fleming of Stony Brook University, and Adia Benton of Northwestern University, as well as postdoctoral fellow Dick Powis of the University of South Florida.
“Over the course of more than 70 years, the imperial reign of Queen Elizabeth II was inextricably tied to the legacy of the British Empire’s commitment to white supremacy and colonialism,” the professor insisted in their letter.
The professors criticised Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who responded to Anya’s tweet by writing, “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”
Anya had responded to Bezos by tweeting “Otoro gba gbue gi,” which translates to “May you pass away from excessive stools”