Black students at Carleton University discussed the meaning of Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy and death for African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) communities in Ottawa on Sept. 22 during an event hosted by the Black Student Alliance and the Umoja Community.
The event took place in person at Carleton’s Richcraft Hall and was live streamed and posted to BSA’s Instagram account. Christie Charles, BSA’s current issues co-ordinator, moderated the discussion.
Kristian McKesey, whose maternal family descended from Black loyalists—a group of Black people who fought for the British during the American Revolutionary War—said he has a complicated relationship with the Crown.
“You have this narrative you grew up with [that] the British saved us from slavery. So the Crown kind of represents that,” he said. “But at the same time, we have all the modern history of the Crown that’s really bad.”
Mechaela Alfonso, a first-year master’s student in social work, spoke about her ancestral origins lost in British colonization. Her family is from Jamaica and Trinidad, two former British colonies.
“I wouldn’t be from Jamaica and Trinidad if it wasn’t for [the Queen] and her family. I would know what country I’m from originally,” Alfonso said. “I have a lot of resentment towards the royal family.”
Attendees also discussed the issue of policing how Black and other marginalized groups reacted to the Queen’s death.
“You can’t pick and choose when the people you oppress get to be happy about the oppressor passing,” Alfonso said.
Alfonso pushed back against the portrayal of the Queen as a harmless older woman to draw sympathy for her.
“With a lot of white people in power, you get to choose when you want to display a white woman as fragile or when you want to display her as powerful,” she said.
The discussion also challenged the narrative of the Queen as a proponent of decolonization.
Audra Diptée, a history professor and co-ordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean studies program at Carleton, said while the Queen was on the throne during the period of decolonization, people from Africa, the Caribbean and other colonies had been fighting against colonization long before.
Diptée, who’s research interests include slavery and race relations, referred to John Chilembwe, who led an uprising against British colonial rule in 1915 in present day Malawi, as an example. The uprising was unsuccessful and cost Chilembwe his life.
“These are the people that need to be remembered in the dismantling of colonialism,” Diptée said in an email to the Charlatan. “Political independence was not a gift from Britain. It was hard-earned.”
Featured image by Dominique Gené.
