The Queen and The George Floyd Racial Reckoning!*-Kanene A. Holder

Reading Time 6 mins

November 3, 2022

“Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.” Queen Elizabeth II.

“And teifing columbus have a golden plan
Dem make a wrong turn and end up in the Caribbean
One rass genocide kill nuff Indians
Lord fi turn paradise in a plantation
And bring cross one ship load a African
No hear comes the teifing queen from en gland
No she carmwell and envy mother
Century pon top a century full a sufferation
And after four hundred year mi say no referation
And now dem wah fi kill we wid taxation
But a beg you please take me to the mother land”

Capture Land– Chronixx, 2014

Life ebbs and flows, punctuated by times of tragedy and triumphs, but much and most is mundane in between. However, every generation experiences flashpoints that change how we live, love, and perceive reality. We usually start our sentences with “I remember when”… MLK was assassinated, Bob Marley died, Obama was elected, 9/11 happened, the George Floyd video came out, and now we can add “when the queen died” to this list.

September 2022 was already a hurtling tragedy at the speed of light. The war in Ukraine continued, the Tigray genocide was finally trending on Twitter, and Kanye launched a war on The Gap and Adidas, accusing both of racism and stifling his creativity by posting headshots of all the board members of JP Morgan Chase on his Instagram page. September also means going back to school and taking work more seriously, but on September 8th, at around 11 am EST, we heard an announcement that Queen Elizabeth’s health was deeply concerning.

Two hours later, the official announcement of her death was accompanied by hours of coverage on every network without even a commercial about a new Mountain Dew flavor or mattress you can order on the Internet and return with no questions. Suddenly and all at once, we entered a not-so-post-monarchy phase, where humanity suspended reality in exchange for a socially engineered global mourning sans racial reckoning. The cognitive dissonance was thicker than Nutella and more expensive to the commonwealth and common sense than inflation.

Mainstream media proceeded to read press releases and rehash sterile, stale, and euphemized talking points uttered by a panoply of pawns ranging from the rage against the machine titan Don Lemon who was eerily silent on British imperialistic atrocities, opting to look at 50 Shades of Somber to the Pakistani Mayor of London sound biting “Throughout a period of unprecedented transformation, she was a source of great stability, inspiring hope during the most testing of times and exemplifying the best of what it means to be British.”

“I’m proud to have served as Mayor of London while Queen Elizabeth II was our monarch.  I know Londoners, and people across the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, are immensely proud and grateful for what she achieved for us over so many years.” If one had never cracked open a history book, looked at a map, or wondered why so many countries have English as their official language, one would think the Queen and the British were the most benevolent, cultured, peaceful force on earth. You would roll out the red carpet for British imperialism.

But alas, as the BBC, CNN, and MSNBC continued with their cut/paste coverage of the comings and goings of King Charles, Prince William, Harry Megan, and the shamed Andrew, with royal “experts,” we saw a clash of civilizations disrupting the “All hail the queen” narrative on social media via #blacktwitter #irishtwitter and #indiantwitter. From demanding the Crown Jewels be returned to wishing her an excruciating death, the parallel universe formerly known as the World Wide Web wove a counternarrative tighter than a black widow spider. Far from crying in the wilderness, the memes, gifs, and factoids of archival photos and videos of Queen Elizabeth scrutinizing the diamonds found through forced labor in Namibia, her Nazi salute as a child, and other morsels of malicious behaviors, confronted the pious queen narrative head on.

In the maelstrom of fact, distortion, spectacle, and silencing of speculation, I wondered how we arrived here and where we were headed. It is no secret that what the British do better than anyone else is pomp and circumstance. Holding ever higher the specter of humanity as being “above” the fray, the obvious, and the fair. Instead of questioning their unfettered wealth and absolution of taxes, people are ever ready to contort their tongues and mentality to conform to the whims of these uber-privileged subsidized demigods. But why?

Why are people willing to scrap their sovereignty, dignity, and humanity in exchange for a heartless, hollow shadow government? Because the monarchy bet correctly! Some people would instead be consumed with the ‘aristocratic’ lives of glamour and pageantry, yearning to act, think, or be like royalty than fight for equality. So generation after generation is duped into believing in an elite spectacle as a distraction to their meager lives, and maybe, if lucky, they can read or write a book on the royals or, in the case of the funeral, wait all night long wearing Depends underwear to get a glimpse at the coffin or casket (that was an entire segment on MSNBC, the difference between the two to describe the final rites of her royal highness).

I also wonder about the media and journalists’ role in maintaining the status quo even when an increasing number of folks armed with facts find such fawning to be falling out of favor. What I noticed is when talking favorably about the Queen, whether it be about her beloved Corgis (apparently all were by her side when she passed and are doing fine despite speculation as to whom would adopt them) or her jewels, journalists would banter on at a fevered pitch, increasingly becoming more excited the more frivolous the information was. However, whenever, though rare, questions would arise about slavery, reparations, or other unsavory issues revolving around 400 years of British imperialism, journalists slowed down their pace but not their deference as if, yes, we acknowledge these atrocities, but does that mean we don’t revere the queen? If you get a chance, I suggest listening to the coverage again to hear the distinction in tone and pace.

The media has gotten a lot wrong over the years. From printing slave catcher ads to eugenics talking points, respected news organizations worldwide have blood on their hands for mass-producing propaganda and depicting marginalized groups as subhuman. Most notably, in the wake of George Floyd, NYT, National Geographic, The Smithsonian, The BBC, and others acknowledged racial fault lines in their previous coverage and pledged to do better. But I wonder. Two years after the George Floyd racial reckoning, how far have we come regarding racial justice? Seems like pride and pageantry overpower truth and accountability. While statutes were toppled, the monarchy may remain intact for another few generations, largely thanks to the media’s unfettered fawning over mass murdering, money laundering, and megalomaniacs masquerading as royalty and presidents.

Long live the queen/king. What does that mean?

What about long live…
The truth!
The Caribbean
The Irish
The Mau Mau
The Indians
The millions enslaved….
And those who didn’t survive the Middle Passage!
My last name is Holder, but the Royal Crown
holds the wealth from the unpaid labor of my ancestors.
I may never know…
my native tongue
Language
Or homeland.

Kanene Ayo Holder is a 3X National Endowment for the Humanities award-winning educator and artist who uses Humor to Heal the Racial Divide via performances off-Broadway and for corporations. She has written for HuffPost, Black Book Review, Everybody’s, and  BigDrumNation, among others. Currently, she is an AntiRacistPersonalTrainer