"Racism Is as British as a Cup of Tea": Kehinde Andrews Says Many Black Brits Don't Mourn the Queen

we end Today's Show in London where the coffin carrying Queen Elizabeth II has just been placed in a hearse Bound for Windsor Castle following the state funeral at Westminster Abbey more than 500 foreign dignitaries attended the Queen's funeral including President Biden leaders from Commonwealth Nations many members of other royal families including the emperor and Empress of Japan the funeral was the largest police operation in UK history police reported placing Sharpshooters on the roofs of every building within a mile of Westminster Abbey the funeral conducted by Dean of Westminster the very Reverend Dr David Hoyle come to this house of God to a place of Prayer to a church where remembrance and hope are sacred duties here where Queen Elizabeth was married and crowned We Gather from across the nation from the Commonwealth and from the nations of the world to mourn our loss to remember her long life of selfless service in related news King Charles III was confronted directly by a protester over the weekend during a stop in Cardiff who shouted to him not my king [Applause] we have to pay for your parade [Music] for more we go to Birmingham England where we're joined by kayendi Andrews professor of black studies in the school of social sciences at Birmingham City University he's actually the UK's first professor of black studies author of The New Age of Empire how racism and colonialism still rule the world his recent piece for Politico headline I don't mourn the queen in it he writes my paternal grandmother was born in colonial Jamaica in 1914 and was raised on the fairy tales of the mother country and nobility of British royalty she migrated to Britain in search of better opportunities in the mid 50s as part of the so-called wind Rush generation who helped to rebuild the nation after the second world war a picture of the Queen had pride of place in her front room and where where she alive today she would have wholeheartedly joined in the collective grief but my father grew up in the 60s facing the cold realities of British racism and could never feel any warmth to either the nation or its figurehead Professor kayindi Andrews welcome to democracy now instead of me reading your words why don't you tell us that story and talk about the coverage of the queen and what the Queens passing means not only for Britain but for the Commonwealth and the Realms do you think this could mean the end of Empire better can you hear me Professor Andrews yes I can't hear you sorry so um yeah no I mean I think you've captured a lot of that with the political piece and what is happening today is this Collective grief of the country and as a black British person it brings to mind W.B du bois's idea of double Consciousness when he said to being black and be an American they just sometimes they they just Clash so much that you feel alienated from the society and seeing all this Collective grief and this morning and people queuing 24 hours of little kids uh so they can stare at what was likely an empty box it just it just seems like the country's gone it's kind of collectively mad around this there's this it's something that we just don't have the connection to for millions of us in this country because I've never saw the queen as somebody represented us and actually saw the queen as somebody represented the very racism that we face on a daily basis you know I talked about the wind Rush generation that's what you write about your paternal grandmother came to uh Britain as a part of that from Jamaica can you explain that more to people who are not familiar with what happened yes so my family was part of the British Empire we have to remember the brain isn't just these little Islands what made Britain Great was this massive Empire that included Jamaica where my family were from and in Jamaica it was uh slavery we're taking their similarly to African Americans taken to to America I always say the Caribbean is like the American South but one of the things that happened with my grandmother generation is they were born in Britain they had British schooling British education they were taught that Britain is the mother country and the queen is great and it's all wonderful so my grandmother grew up loving the Queen loving Britain had lots of Hope when she came and migrated here and she had a picture of the queen on a wall till she died and would have been in one of those queues to go see the coffee but the realities of racism are very different when she got here when my dad got here as a young man and grew up in and saw all the same races on the African-Americans experience police brutality problems with schools second grade housing so we grew up not feeling any connection to Britain and obviously not feeling any connection to the to the figurehead of the nation state you're father chose to leave Britain and go back to Jamaica so you retired a few years ago yeah to be fair he'd always kind of been going back to Jamaica for weeks he's never really he's never the weather never really took it never really took the weather here but my father was part of the Black Power movement in Britain uh very much saying look this state he doesn't represent us we can't get progress here we have to have our own education system our own schools I mean this is how black studies eventually came about in we said actually this the curriculum isn't as far as the universities aren't for us can we do something different and the queen is the head of the nation because all the king now he's the head of the nation they do represent what the nation is and racism is as British as a cup of tea which is why so many of us reject both the nation and the monarchy I thought it was very interesting how you talked about black Brits and black Americans how here in the United States you're talking about seeing racism every day on a daily basis and in Britain it's not only in Britain but it is the Empire it is the Commonwealth that's not so often seen it was exported to the colonies yeah I mean the big difference between America and Britain is that Britain essentially did its racial violence off off campus if you like it was so in the Caribbean in India there's been very few of us actually in the United Kingdom on the island only until this what we call the Windrush generation post 1948 so whereas in America you have you know there's black people in America before there is America racism is coded into all the laws it's so obviously in the constitution in Britain it's different because we really have only been here in large numbers relatively recently but the problems are exactly the same I mean British racism and American racism are the same right Britain found in America it was Britain that first took enslaved Africans to America so it can't seem like racism is different here but essentially no it's exactly the same gold tobacco sugar cotton Queen Elizabeth the first um you say launched Britain's slave trade talk about these Commodities and what they meant for the people where they were grown those that brought that wealth to Britain that we're seeing transferred from one generation to the next in the Royal Family yeah so we think what made Britain Britain prior to the 16th century before the British Empire before Britain got involved in slavery Britain was a small country in the North Atlantic doesn't have many resources and wasn't really going anywhere what made Britain take off was its involvement in in the slave trade and the Royal African company which is the company founded to initially start enslaving Africans for the British Empire was the company that enslaved more Africans than any company in the world Britain was the premier slave trading nation and that and all the things if you think about what made Britain Britain first it is gold and it is silver it is then financialization the stock market Etc then it's tobacco of and those are the things which power Britain's development so on one hand you have Britain making massive strides the Industrial Revolution becoming this great nation at the top of the world and then look at what happens to the people who had to do that the Caribbean for example is a perfect example where my family's from we're taking there in Chains uh made to produce all this wealth sugar was the first one that really pushed uh Britain forward but then you look 200 years later how is somewhere like Jamaica doing it's one of the poorest countries in the world and that's not an accident that's because um the whole country and the economy was designed to drain money out and give it to Britain and the best example of this is when they ended slavery in 1838 eventually the British government paid the largest payment ever equivalent to about 100 billion pounds if you look at GDP to the slave owners and the enslaved got nothing and in fact had to work after that had to be had to work for four years 75 of their time as slaves to prove they were fit to be free and we still see the legacy of that today hmm um if you can talk about expressing dissent today in Britain the whole issue of whether you can say you were against the monarchy that you want it to end well it's interesting I'll say that I've spoken to probably about 20 journalists I've done interviews like this all week not one of them has been with the British press there has been wall-to-wall coverage of the funeral like any TV channel line is just queen queen and noticing no questioning the role no questioning the the future of the monarchy none of this it really has been a week of propaganda which has come to work Crescendo today with absolutely everything is closed and you did report on some of the you know the way that protests have been being dealt with I mean honestly if you just look a step back from this and said well actually how has this been treated it's not too far from fascism actually and it is it is and people say it's not in the right time though when else would be the best time to question the role of the monarchy when there is 70-year Reign but very up and surely now is the perfect time to wonder why on Earth we would have this monarchy why on Earth it would represent 14 other countries in the world whether the Monarch is head of state and even in Britain this is this is an old institution deeply racist deeply classes deeply patriarchal it just needs to go and this is the perfect time to discuss when it should end if you could uh also address the issue of those who talk about the queen uh like the conservative commentator Candice Owens speaking about British colonization of Africa on her show The Daily wire earlier this month the real truth of the reason why people hate the queen has nothing to do with the colonization and something to do which by the way just to be clear um the Brits invading Africa actually represents and this is going to get me in trouble but it was if you look at how forward it brought the African colonies it ended up being a net positive now this is of course people it's going to get me in trouble because people somehow think that Africans were living happily ever after and things were great and then the horrible English British descended upon and murdered everybody and the French suddenly murdered everybody and that just isn't the truth obviously the African nations had slavery just like um the European nations had slavery Professor kayendi Andrews if you could respond well unfortunately some people uh like to make money from uh being the black face of white racism and candy so it has a very good history of this I mean that is a perfectly nonsensical view of the past actually when Britain came into took when Europe in general and Britain in particular came into Africa to enslave people Europe was behind was far behind in the 15th century Europe was probably the only place in the world in a dark age and came into Africa and one of the ways in the the main way that Europe takes over is the slave trade it is draining Africans to to to get the Commodities gold silver tobacco et cetera Etc that then it enriches Europe so that Europe can colonize I mean colonization in Africa is actually for a reason most countries on the African continent were not directly colonized by European powers for more than 100 years because it took centuries of draining our African people a barbaric system of slavery which never existed on the African continent which totally not only destabilize Africa so that Europe could take over the idea that slavery and colonialism somehow positive for Africa is frankly insane I mean just look at global poorest part of the world is the place is the so-called sub-Saharan Africa the place of the lowest life expectancy is so-called sub-Saharan Africa anybody with their eyes open looking at this honestly could not possibly think that Africa has benefited from anything that Europe has done as we wrap up this show we have 30 seconds candy Andrews what would you like to see now I mean you have the song God saved the queen is now changing to God save the king um with uh now king um Charles III your thoughts I think it is time now to end the anachronism of what is the British Monarchy it's 70 years certainly I think and when we say the Commonwealth that's just the former British Empire let's not I think many countries are going to think about removing the queen as head of state including my own country um Jamaica but I think also in Britain like this this monarchy is a terrible symbol if we want to have an anti-racist Britain if we want to learn the lessons from the black lives matter if you want a public spaceship which includes the millions of children of empire in it you have to get rid of the money

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 453,279

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: wCqHzLM_jew

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 19 2022