Queen Elizabeth II

In reply to alfadriver :

Well, they were tapped dry of resources and colonized. They don't know how to function outside of the Commonwealth, and the people in place are "English". Abused kids can run away, but then what? Be on the streets. Great hand to be dealt.

Saw this posted on BlackTwitter:

Today is probably the closest we will ever come to world peace. All different cultures coming together in the name of systemic trauma to absolutely roast the E36 M3 out of THE colonizer queen . We love to see it

Why would such a humorous page post something so deep? If it didn't resonate with you, ask yourself why.  

I spent a good part of my day watching people from the UK in a group I moderate have a wonderful time making jokes about her passing. It was an experience.

To be fair, she was the queen of the country that was likely the largest colonizer in history (the Mongols did a pretty good job in their time), but I am pretty sure there was no colonizing going on in HER time.  The monarchy had already lost most all of its power by the time she came along.  

I completely understand the derision many former English colonies have for the British and the monarchy but the behavior of the British was not entirely out of line of the common behavior of many nations at the time (people, in general, where amazing brutal to each other, some still are of course).  Hate them certainly, but don't think it's entirely unusual, and blaming current Britons is probably a bit of a stretch.

I would think more derision would be made of the British for the fact that they where the ones that setup the Atlantic slave trade out of Africa (probably the largest?).  They of course, put the effort in to stop it, but that is the least they could do. Even in that case, they certainly did not invent slavery, slave trade, or even African slavery, but they very much expanded it.  I am sure you can put the blame on the monarchy for that, since they where still in power then.  Do you blame Elizabeth for the slave trade though? That's a bit of "sins of your father" (I think grandfather in her case)

The Monarchy is, in modern times, essentially silly and almost entirely pointless, and has been her entire reign.

She seemed to stay out of trouble and be well liked, which is the least you can ask of a royal figurehead. Contrast that to, say, the current Thai monarch.

 I think there was a meme in such thread that said "Britain is the #1 supplier of independence days."

aircooled said:

I would think more derision would be made of the British for the fact that they where the ones that setup the Atlantic slave trade out of Africa (probably the largest?). 

It wasn't the Dutch?

aircooled said:

Do you blame Elizabeth for the slave trade though? That's a bit of "sins of your father" (I think grandfather in her case)

The Monarchy is, in modern times, essentially silly and almost entirely pointless, and has been her entire reign.

Elizabeth's grandfather was George V, you've got to back another 3 or 4 generations to the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

The monarchy is ceremonial and traditional, which is not the same as silly and pointless.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

aircooled said:

...The Monarchy is, in modern times, essentially silly and almost entirely pointless, and has been her entire reign.

The monarchy is ceremonial and traditional, which is not the same as silly and pointless.

To me it is.

I am fine with it if someone else doesn't thinks so though. I respect the tradition, but I still think it's silly and mostly pointless.

In reply to aircooled :

I will not be in all fairness, because there's no fairness in the truth, just facts. No, I do not blame her for her family actions that were before her in regards to slavery, I'm not that dense or illogical. Thanks.

But, she should have and could have reversed so many things. She had so much influence and her actions and lack-of action resulted in generational trauma. She could've given back everything but no she didn't. Instead she wore that Great Star of Africa (Cullinan Diamond) with pride and benefited willingly from everything done before and during her reign. With her power, immense influence, and massive consolidated stolen wealth that was her choice not to do right and allow/turned a blind eye to bad things.

I can't tell if y'all are just purposely ignoring everything that went on during her 70 year reign. Or, if y'all are just honestly that ignorant. Whether you are keeping your head in the sand or not, do better. Think beyond 'whataboutisms' and comparing her to her family before her. Just because she wasn't as-bad (how do you measure that?) doesn't make her good. Stop making excuses. Learn more about Brown People History. 

Maybe the image of a sweet old white lady charms you into not considering how berkeleyed up she was. Maybe she reminds you of your granny which softens your stance and allows you to give her a pass. Today, an oppressor died. Possibly hopefully signifying the end of a long line of berkeley-up'ness. You don't see it that way possibly because your family history saves you from the perspective of the oppressed and the associated trauma. Im not sure. But, after 70 years in power, plenty of people in the world are celebrating the death of a tyrant and figurehead of colonization. If it was Putin who died today, your tune would be so different. So why does she deserve so much grace? 

Personal Note: I am disappointed amongst many things, that folks who I'm rather fond of, on this forum of all places, can see her in such positivity and defend her in such a way.

This is tiring as usual but I can do it all day, AND WILL. 

But in the spirit of this thread, I'll be friendly and go along:

RIP to the Colonizer Queen. May the blood on her fancy white gloves be washed off in the rivers of hell. 

Also, but mostly RIP, to all my African diaspora  and Indigenous ancestors,  as well as the Brown People and Asians and their ancestors who suffered and continue to suffer generationally at the hands of colonizers (British Royal Family) and their actions/inaction.

In reply to tremm :

Saw a video one time explaining the value of the monarchy in a purely symbolic level. Can't remember where it was to link it, but basically...

Regularly, the Prime Minister has to sit in front of the Queen (now King), the symbolic representation of the nation he serves, explain what he wants to do and why it's good for the people.

Imagine the President of the United States had to have coffee with Uncle Sam regularly, and explain plainly his plans and why it was the right thing for the nation. No persuading. No trading deals or anything. No grandstanding in front of cameras for soundbites. Just a quiet room with the personification of your nation and having to explain why what you did last week and what you plan to do the coming week is right.

aircooled said:

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

aircooled said:

...The Monarchy is, in modern times, essentially silly and almost entirely pointless, and has been her entire reign.

The monarchy is ceremonial and traditional, which is not the same as silly and pointless.

To me it is.

I am fine with it if someone else doesn't thinks so though. I respect the tradition, but I still think it's silly and mostly pointless.

We drive around empty parking lots. At the end of a season, we go to Appleby's and someone gets a plastic trophy with gold paint on it.

Dear yepididit,

We get it. You hate the monarchy. No need to keep repeating yourself.

ddavidv said:

Dear yepididit,

We get it. You hate the monarchy. No need to keep repeating yourself.

I enjoyed his perspective.  A lot of my Indian friends are shedding no tears either.  

Honestly I'm with yupididit here. I see no reason to think highly of any of the royal family. I was kind of hoping Elizabeth's death would be the beginning of the end of this nonsense. And no this isn't lighthearted nonsense like autocross. This is state funded celebration of a group of not very nice people who don't seem to offer much benefit to society. I'm not one of their subjects so I'm fully aware it's not actually my problem at all, and I won't lose sleep over any of it. Any anomosity pointed towards that family including Elizabeth seems to be well earned though.

ddavidv said:

Dear yepididit,

We get it. You hate the monarchy. No need to keep repeating yourself.

Clearly, there is a need to repeat myself. People in here are literally celebrating and defending a person who through their power and influence has caused harm to millions of people. Disproportionately people of color. Clearly, I need to say something over and over because y'all see no value in the trauma and pain caused to these people, I'm fact it isn't all that bad huh?

But no, I do not HATE anything or anyone because hate is something I was never taught. 

People on this forum can repeat themselves for years and years and completely wash and ruin threads over petty things. But....The one time, I dig my teeth in and call people out on something that truly matters and has negatively affected billions of people, I shouldn't repeat myself? 

I didn't think I'd ever have to say this on here....do not silence me do not shut me up. The worst thing you can do to a person who has been or family has been affected by colonist and oppression is to shut them up when they bring forward their grievances. 

I appreciate the YupIdidit perspective.  

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with an elderly German national (friends mother who is visiting here from Germany.)  Much of the conversation was typical stuff here (ie: powerful woman, 70 years, mother of a nation etc.)   

But, I did follow it up with, "but were still really not sure that she didn't order Diana killed."  The German agreed, it was quite possible.  
We also agreed that these people play a different game, at a different level, not unlike others in the same game.  We have former, power-couples in this country who I am personally convinced did similar (but I'm not putting that up for debate or discussion.)  

I'm not really trying to besmirch The Queen Mum.  More I am just stating that players in that realm (in many countries) play a different game.  I am also not endorsing or condoning the game that any of them play.  Rather, I am just acknowledging their game is different than say my daily existence.  

The oppressors died years ago. The England that exists today is just a remnant of what used to be. They can't even tell the EU what to do. Yes. They made a big mess that has yet to be cleaned up or may never be cleaned up. Maybe Princess Diana was trying to make amends, but she didn't have the power or did not live long enough to make a difference. 

At least the Queen managed to keep a stiff upper lip and stay out of trouble while the rest of the Royal family was busy being silly and pointless, and providing fodder for the British tabloids. I'm not sure that the Royal family will survive without her. 

Maybe I'm ignorant of some things, but while the Queen could've done a lot better, comparing her to Hilter or Putin immediately strikes me as ridiculous. Yes she lived a life of opulent luxury on the spoils of colonialism and slavery and did nothing I'm aware of to correct that, that's a major failing, her greatest failing I'm aware of at the moment. However, she was never an absolute monarch, but a mostly ceremonial figurehead (but with the power to basically veto national budget items, which she used once to limit the UK's role in a Bush Jr.-era war IIRC) so you have to ask how much power she really had over what the UK was doing. Could she have stopped the Bengal famine? Gifted get-independence-free certificates to every British-held territory? Kicked off a reparations effort with anything beyond the royal family's wealth? @yupididit, I'm interested in learning about anything I might be missing, so I would appreciate a short list of atrocities and notable terrible things that occurred on her watch and what she could've done to stop them, and what she could've done better (beyond the aforementioned returning of looted items and paying reparations from royal wealth).

alfadriver said:Not sure what the advantage of that is- other than an apparent ease in moving from one to another.  (IIRC, Gameboy has moved from Barbados to Canada,

Both being in the Commonwealth had nothing to do with that, long story short is that I inherited dual citizenship in those countries from my dad. I don't think there's any added ease in moving between Commonwealth countries.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I guess I could do the legwork for you or you could easily Google it. You might appreciate it more as a result of your own work.

Easy to hit with a rock: 

- Partition of India

- Kenya anticolonial movement

- South Africa and Apartheid

The simple fact that I can visit Kenya or Benin and find more natural treasures and artifacts for said countries in a Great Britain Museum. Should start the thought process of why.

And I can't see how it's so easy to separate her from Putin and any African, Asian, or South American tyrant. When there's billions of people or color expressing trauma because they were affected by things that happened over the last 70 years. Her lack of confrontation and avoidance of embarrassing 'The Queens Govt' was passive victimization along with the active. And to say she didn't have the power is ridiculous, the most powerful family in modern history and her benefiting from everything past and present is gross misuse of her position as a modern Queen.

Also, asking me to prove/list these things reminds me of when people tell me to prove or list modern racism in America. Such a weird way to put the burden on others. 

Google queen and  12 million  

her defense and payment of prince Andrew's Settlement is reprehensible.  
 

Thanks @yupididit, I'm not trying to be obtuse or play dumb, I'm honestly ignorant - I didn't know until just now that she opposed sanctions on apartheid South Africa for example (Edit: After researching more, she did later support sanctions more strongly than the UK's ruling party at the time: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/crown-season-4-did-queen-elizabeth-ii-margaret-thatcher-get-n1247289), and I'll research the other issues. I suspect this will help educate others in this thread as well.

Her looting of artifacts and wealth is not something to be downplayed either. If, for the sake of argument, Hitler had a daughter who never did anything wrong other than living large on a pile of Nazi-looted treasures she never showed any interest in returning, people would pretty easily see her as a plainly terrible person for that wrong alone. QE2 was basically born into the same position and did the same thing (in addition to other wrongs) but seems to get a free pass on it just because there's more time and distance between her and the atrocities.

However I think calling the Royals the most powerful family in modern history is a huge overstatement, they're not as powerful as the UK's democratically-elected leader or many powerful business families of today, unless they push past their legally-defined roles as royals. They certainly did fail to use what power they had for good.

WRT India, it was in her father's reign that Britain let India suffer in a massive famine.   Under the coverall- conserve for the war effort, many people died because the leaders hoarded all of the rice during WWII. 

So you don't have to trace back to slavery to see some serious things that Britain did in their colonies.    All some people want to remember is that Elizabeth rode a motorcycle and worked on Land Rovers during the war.

And one also can't forget that it was seen as so unusual for Diana to go on her missions to get rid of land mines.  Just trying to make people's lives better was not all that approved.

One more thing- she's not being directly compared to her predecessors or even Hitler, but the point is that she did little to nothing to undo what they did- and she had plenty of time and influence to do something. 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I appreciate your reply and everything stated within. Maybe her family monetary power is overstated but their positional power and reverence pulled weight in modern times. Most people do not even think about the other uber-powerful families who may or may not pull global strings from the shadows but the British Royals speak and make world news. That's a lot of power. 

alfadriver said:

One more thing- she's not being directly compared to her predecessors or even Hitler, but the point is that she did little to nothing to undo what they did- and she had plenty of time and influence to do something. 

She was about two things. 1) keeping her family comfortable and 2) keeping them out of controversy.  But powerful people and contreversy go together like fish and chips.  
 

But arguing about her now seems silly.  She's dead. We've got about as much chance to influence her as we do about the tides. 

education about where she went wrong and how we can change our own behavior.  That's important. 
 

Perhaps one reason the wrongs she committed aren't so widely known, is that if you try searching for things like "Queen Elizabeth II failings", you turn up lists of relatively trivial stuff like this:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/08/queen-elizabeth-ii-a-constant-queen-whose-failings-were-rare

https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/biggest-mistakes-queen-elizabeth-ii-has-ever-made.html/

https://www.history.com/news/queen-elizabeth-ii-key-moments

You have to dig pretty deep to find more substantial fare like this:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/victims-families-want-apology-from-queen-elizabeth-1.130469