Jesus, Is Nobody Else Tired Of This?
The most unremarkable of events: a 96-year-old woman dies at home, surrounded by her family.
And even less remarkable, the internet found a way to go to war over it.
Depending on who you ask, Queen Elizabeth II was either “a symbol of white supremacy” or “a symbol of unity, grace and dignity.” She was “the rock on which modern Britain was built,” or “the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire.” (I guess these last two aren’t mutually exclusive.)
Within hours, Uju Anya, a Nigerian-born linguistics professor whose family was massacred and displaced by the British Empire, wished her excruciating pain on Twitter. Piers Morgan did his best impression of moral indignation (despite making almost identical comments when Robert Mugabe died). Tucker Carlson popped up on Fox News to argue that colonialism was “a better time,” contemptuous, as usual, of all the people for whom it was far worse.
And despite never once thinking about Queen Elizabeth or colonialism or the pros and cons of a constitutional monarchy, millions of people spontaneously developed fierce, unshakeable opinions about who was right. Because, whatever Queen Elizabeth was, what she became, before her body was even cold, is a shiny new weapon…
