>
A Pennsylvania professor who said she hoped Queen Elizabeth would endure an “unbearable death” has doubled down on her controversial comments, telling a podcast Wednesday, “I said what the fuck I said.”
Uju Anya, a Nigerian-American linguistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, sparked widespread anger with her reaction to the Queen’s final hours.
Jeff Bezos was one of those who denounced her tweet, saying, ‘This is someone who is supposedly working to make the world a better place? I do not think so. Wow.’
On Wednesday, Anya, 46, told the podcast This Week In White Supremacy that she did not regret her tweet, which has been deleted by Twitter.
Commenting on the controversy, Anya tweeted: “If anyone expects me to express anything but contempt for the monarch who oversaw a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and expelled half of my family and whose current people are still trying to conquer, you can keep wishing for a star.’
She told the podcast on Wednesday, “In other words, I said what the fuck I said.”
Uju Anya, a Nigerian-American linguistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told the podcast This Week In White Supremacy that she stood by her controversial comments about the Queen.
Hundreds of people criticized the blunt professor for her comments about the queen’s last hours
Uju Anya is a lecturer and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Anya’s hatred of the Queen, who died last week at age 96, stemmed from her family’s experience in Nigeria.
In 1967 – seven years after Nigeria gained independence from the British Empire and 15 years after the young queen took the throne – civil war broke out in the east of the country.
The Biafra separatists wanted independence from the Nigerian Igbo people but were forcefully suppressed by the Nigerian government, with the support of the British government, which supplied weapons.
More than a million people died in the two-year conflict – many of them from starvation.
Anya blamed the queen.
“I had an emotional reaction. And an emotional outburst,” she told the podcast hosts.
‘I was triggered by this news.
“It went deep into pain and trauma for me. Because of my family experience with the reign of this monarch.’
Anya said on Wednesday she was ‘triggered’ by the Queen’s death
Queen Elizabeth, pictured on June 2, died last week at the age of 96. Anya said she despised her for Britain’s role in fueling the civil war in Nigeria in the late 1960s, which killed more than a million people.
The coffin containing the Queen’s body will be carried into the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday
Anya, who said she was an “unabashed, leftist” provocateur used to controversial debates, said her tweet was “unplanned, very spontaneous” and “extremely real.”
“I’ve heard that the supreme ruler of a thieving, raping, genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be unbearable,” she tweeted to her approximately 70,000 followers.
She said she was surprised at how much attention the tweet got, but said it was meant to educate people.
‘I like to teach. I am essentially a teacher,” she said.
“And I bring evidence and support for the claims I make.”
The Queen’s death was also celebrated by some opinion writers, with one promising to dance on her grave and another describing her 70-year reign as “devastating.”
As millions around the world mourned the 96-year-old monarch’s death, within hours provocateurs mocked the outpouring of grief — in some of the most highly regarded publications in the United States.
Her administration’s mockery was led by Tirhakah Love, senior newsletter writer for New York Magazine.
“For 96 years, that colonizer has been sucking up the Earth’s resources,” he wrote in his Thursday evening newsletter.
He added: “You cannot be a literal oppressor and not expect the people you have oppressed to be unhappy with the news of your death.”
Tirhakah Love, senior newsletter writer for New York Magazine, said he was looking forward to dancing on the Queen’s grave
Love, who was appointed in December and described by magazine editors as “creative and restless” and “funny and surprising,” said he felt nothing but joy over her death.
“Now should I be quiet or, better yet, actually mourn what was a barely breathable Glad ForceFlex trash bag? Please, no,” he wrote.
“I just want to remind you that in the rest of the world, and I mean the real world, most will be celebrating today.
‘We all have our methods of mourning friends; doing the electric slide on a colonizer’s grave just happens to be mine.’
Love knew his take on the Dinner Party newsletter would be provocative and tweeted, ‘lol make sure you read the dinner party’.
When someone reacted with sham terror, the Texan replied, ‘lmaooo whatchu meaannn???? I’m about to be as respectful and sweet as ever!’
In The New York Times, Maya Jasanoff, a history professor at Harvard University, where she focuses on the history of Britain and the British Empire, said it was wrong to “romanticize” her government.
Maya Jasanoff, a Harvard professor who specializes in British Empire history, said it was wrong to “romanticize” the Queen’s rule
“The Queen helped cover up a bloody history of decolonization whose proportions and legacies are not yet sufficiently recognized,” she wrote.
Jasanoff highlights the repression in Malaysia, Kenya, Yemen, Cyprus and Ireland.
“We may never find out what the Queen did or didn’t know about the crimes committed in her name,” she said.
“Those who announced a second Elizabethan era hoped that Elizabeth II would retain British greatness; instead it was the age of the implosion of the empire.’
A writer for The Atlantic magazine, Jemele Hill, also chimed in on her Twitter account, saying journalists had a duty to cover what she called the “devastating” effects of Elizabeth’s government.
“Journalists are tasked with putting legacies in full context, so it is entirely appropriate to examine the Queen and her role in the devastating impact of ongoing colonialism,” Hill wrote.
That tweet also got a comment section full of critics, saying “Lol ain’t no one gonna say a thing tho.”
Jemele Hill, a writer for The Atlantic, wrote about the Queen’s ‘devastating’ reign
Another journalist, Eugene Scott of The Washington Post, also gave his opinion, asking when would be a good time to talk about colonialism under the Queen.
‘Real question for the ‘now is not the right time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism’: when is the right time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism?’ He wrote.
Imani Gandy, a legal analyst at Rewire News, tweeted a video of a group of men tap dancing outside Buckingham Palace to the song Another One Bites The Dust.
“The Queen has passed away and the Irish are already working on it lol,” she wrote.