The Death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: The Right to Mourn (and Not)

On the afternoon of Thursday, September 8, the world was notified of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. In a brief tweet, the official Royal Family Twitter account stated, “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.” Immediately following the announcement, every social media platform was filled with various responses to the Queen’s death. Some praised her legacy as the longest reigning British monarch, thanking her for her years of service. Others, however, were less sympathetic. For days afterwards, my social media feed on Twitter and TikTok showed a majority of people who were celebrating the Queen’s death—followed by her supporters calling this response deeply disrespectful and insensitive. As with so much of our modern popular discourse, the world was polarized between both ends of the spectrum (celebration and mourning). However, I think that there is and should be the space for both of these opinions. I believe that it is key to approach this complex conversation in a way that allows us to both respect the sanctity of life and critique the deeply problematic systems and institutions that the British monarchy–and by extension, Queen Elizabeth II–stood for.

To begin, I think it is important to openly acknowledge my biases in writing this article. When I first saw the Royal Family’s tweet on my Twitter feed, I was emotionally torn. On the one hand, I was shocked and devastated by the news of the Queen’s death. Ever since I was young, I have been surrounded by British culture and media. As the son of an English teacher (and now as an English major at AU), many of the shows, movies, and books I read for class and for pleasure center around British culture and history. Given this context, to hear of the Queen’s death was extremely emotional. However, during my time at Andrews, I have also learned so much more about British colonialism and the horrible atrocities that the United Kingdom committed in the name of the Empire. In class, I’ve been exposed to the stories of generations of people across the world whose lives were forever changed by British colonization. I read first-hand accounts about families being torn apart, mass genocide of indigenous peoples, forced religious conversion, and Black and Brown people made to renounce their cultural heritage and embrace a new, totally foreign regime at gunpoint. Needless to say, what I’ve seen inside and outside of class has made me aware of the deeply complex institution that is the British monarchy. Being both an Anglophile and a critic of the United Kingdom allows me to see and empathize with both sides of this issue. For some, the monarchy is a source of national pride and joy; for others (as expressed by those on my Twitter and TikTok feeds) the Queen is a triggering reminder of genocide, oppression, and colonization. With this in mind, I think that the death of Queen Elizabeth II allows us the opportunity for much needed conversation surrounding the ongoing effects of the British monarchy, Empire, and colonization. Similarly, looking at people’s cries that critiques of the monarchy and Queen Elizabeth II are insensitive and disrespectful of her death shows us how steeped our society is within white supremacy.

Before we apply this to ongoing conversations about the death of the Queen, what is white supremacy? In “White Supremacy and Me” (2020), author Layla Saad writes, “White supremacy is a racist ideology that is based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore, white people should be dominant over other races. White supremacy is not just an attitude or a way of thinking. It also extends to how systems and institutions are structured to uphold this white dominance” (12). A primary example of these caustic, white supremacist institutions are the British monarchy and Empire/Commonwealth. Beginning in the 1500s during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the British Empire began as a series of attempts to establish trade routes around the world through creating colonies in the Caribbean, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Fast forward to the early 1900s and the British Empire covered nearly 25% of the Earth and ruled over between 470 and 570 million people. Unfortunately, as many of us learned in history class (or from watching “Hamilton”), the British Empire’s colonial process consisted of armies arriving in a foreign land, finding the land’s main source of economic value, sometimes enacting mass genocide and enslavement of indigenous peoples, and then establishing British colonies. In this way, the British Empire and colonies tapped into Saad’s definition of white supremacy. By forcibly removing or enslaving Black and Brown people and creating British colonies, the British created systems that placed white people in power and gave them the ability to dominate (and profit from) people of other races. Many of these countries still suffer from the ongoing effects of British colonialism decades after gaining independence. Following World War II, many of the countries that had been colonized by the British Empire fought for independence. And this is where Queen Elizabeth II comes into play. Beginning her reign in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II was the figurehead of the British government while the British Empire fell apart. What we now know as the British Commonwealth (which includes Canada, Australia, India, and various countries in Africa) was born out of the remnants of the British Empire.

Now, having provided context, how does this apply to the polarized opinions surrounding Queen Elizabeth II’s death? A creator from the Instagram account @aotearoaliberationleague sums up this connection. She says, “Some people are saying that celebrating or minimising the death of the Queen is insensitive. That may be true, but in my view it’s even more insensitive to saturate our media with celebratory posts about a person who, for many people, is a symbol of genocide, colonisation, and all the violent institutions that came with it.” In this way, this creator pushes back against the idea that Queen Elizabeth II was an amazing human being who should be celebrated and looked up to, when in reality, for many people across the globe, she represented generations of trauma and pain due to colonialism. She continues, “So in my view it’s totally inappropriate for people to police how victims of colonisation talk about the passing of the Queen. And I think it’s only right that if we choose to remember her legacy that we remember all of it.” I wholeheartedly agree with this point of view. While it is important to remember the Queen’s legacy following her passing, we also must be purposeful to remember all of her legacy and not just the parts of it that make us feel comfortable. MSNBC analyst Brittany Packnett echoes this idea on Twitter: “Today is a reminder of how things like ‘decorum’ help white supremacy be cultural not just systemic. Decorum will silence people from telling the truth because it’s ‘impolite.’ Meanwhile, it’s not impolite to ask the colonized to mourn the chief symbol of their colonization? Folks aren’t always ‘celebrating death’ when they tell an inconvenient truth. Don’t be more obsessed with decorum than the truth. Don’t be more committed to order than you are justice.” As both of these commentators argue, we have to be purposeful about telling the full story and acknowledging the truth when we remember the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II. While we recognize the space for mourning (especially for those who knew her as a mother, grandmother, and friend) we also must equally and importantly recognize the ways in which white supremacy uses decorum and “politeness” to maintain deeply problematic norms and silence necessary critique of oppressive institutions. When an influential figure dies, we are quick to define whether  they were a good person. However, in this case, the Queen represented both the best and the worst of the British monarchy and the United Kingdom as a nation, which places all of us in a sticky situation. When wrestling with this issue, many people draw the distinction between the Parliament and the Monarch, arguing that the Queen—as a symbolic figurehead—had little control in the on-goings of the British government and is therefore blameless in colonization. While I would agree that Queen Elizabeth II may not have been the overseer of colonization, I think it is important to recognize her complicity within a unignorably toxic and oppressive system. For example, over the Queen’s reign she embarked on numerous Commonwealth tours which, in part, acted to dissuade nations who were considering independence from the United Kingdom. Similarly, in January of this year, the Queen knighted Tony Blair, a former UK prime minister who many Iraquis hold responsible for the modern colonization of Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.  In an article for the New York Times, Maya Jasanoff writes, “By design as much as by the accident of her long life, her presence as head of state and head of the Commonwealth, an association of Britain and its former colonies, put a stolid traditionalist front over decades of violent upheaval. As such, the queen helped obscure a bloody history of decolonization whose proportions and legacies have yet to be adequately acknowledged.” By attempting to silence those who point out the very real problems of the British monarchy and Queen Elizabeth II, we perpetuate white supremacy and cultural norms that maintain racist power structures. In telling people from the Commonwealth to be silent, you say that their hurt and pain is invalid and doesn’t deserve to be listened to. However, by denigrating those who mourn, we also invalidate those who saw Queen Elizabeth II as a role model. Both of these points of view can (and are) valid at the same time.

With this in mind, I want to pull another quote from Brittany Packnett’s Twitter thread. It reads, “I’m not telling yall to dance on anybody’s grave or place flowers there. But I believe times of social conversation can help us build deeper understanding. There are lessons [to be learned].”  In our conversations surrounding the death of the Queen, as with much of current discourse, we are quick to ignore complexity and nuance, instead opting to take a side. Instead of thinking critically about the monarchy and the British government’s ongoing impact on colonization, we define the Queen as a good person because that’s what makes us feel the most comfortable. By not confronting the United Kingdom’s deeply problematic past, we remain complacent and complicit within colonization and systems of oppression.  The negative feelings and lived experiences of colonized or previously colonized peoples are just as valid as those who adored the Queen. If anything, now is the time to recognize the deeply problematic past of the British Empire and how the monarchy continues to negatively affect people colonially and financially. As Packnett said, these online discourses can help us build empathy for those who believe differently. However, just because we are empathetic does not mean that we, as antiracists and anti-colonialists, should remain complacent. Let us use the death of Queen Elizabeth II to acknowledge the atrocities of the past and commit to a more ethical future.