Carnegie Mellon professor wishesQueen Elizabeth ‘excruciating pain’
as she ‘finally’ dies
A professor at Carnegie Mellon University drew criticism on social media after wishing England’s Queen Elizabeth "excruciating pain" hours before she died on Thursday.
"I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying," Carnegie Mellon University Professor Uju Anya tweeted on Thursday morning. "May her pain be excruciating."
The Twitter post came as reports began to circulate that the 96-year-old monarch's health was deteriorating and doctors were "concerned" about her condition.
The tweet, which was re-tweeted and liked over 10,000 times on Twitter in just a few hours, prompted strong pushback from many users on Twitter.
"That sentiment is pure evil," researcher Mike Galsworthy tweeted. "Please delete as it benefits the world nothing."
"Hi @CarnegieMellon, this your professor?" Young America’s Foundation Spokesperson Kara Zupkus tweeted.
"Who are you again?" blogger and former conservative Member of British Parliament Louise Mensch tweeted. "Oh yeah absolutely nobody trying to grift off a beloved woman people care about."
"This is what a complete lack of emotional intelligence & a heart full of hate looks like," British model Jemma Palmer tweeted. "Don’t be like @UjuAnya. Be a better human."
"This is someone supposedly working to make the world better?" Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tweeted. "I don’t think so. Wow."
Anya, listed as an associate professor of second language acquisition on the Carnegie Mellon website, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
"If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star," Anya later tweeted.
Hours after the tweet was posted, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth has died.
"The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon," the royal family shared on its website. "The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."
Carnegie Mellon University did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital but posted a message on social media regarding the controversy.
"We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account," the university posted on Twitter. "Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster."
Carnegie Mellon University has condemned social media posts by one of its professors after Dr Uju Anya wished the Queen an “excruciating” death and tweeted that she hoped the Queen would die “in agony.”
uju.jpg© Twitter/Uju Anya
Dr Anya made the comments Thursday as reports emerged that the Queen was in her final hours at Balmoral.
“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating,” the professor wrote before it was announced the Queen had died.
Twitter took down the tweet for violating its policy; it has not responded to The Independent’s request for comment.
Dr Anya faced a serious Twitter backlash for the seeming insensitivity - even from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who then came in for criticism himself - but the professor responded by doubling down on the tweet.
“If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star,” she tweeted.
She also responded to Bezos, tweeting at him directly: “Otoro gba gbue gi” - which roughly translates to an Igbo insult wishing someone death - “May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers.”
Dr Anya’s employer, Carnegie Mellon - the Pennsylvania university where she is an associate professor of second language acquisition - quickly issued a statement on Thursday.
“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uku Anya today on her personal social media account,” the university tweeted.
“Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster.”
Dr Anya, who describes herself on Twitter as an “antiracist” and “feminist,” was born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and mother from Trinidad and Tobago. Both countries were colonised by the British - Nigeria became independent in 1960, with Trinidad and Tobago following suit two years later.
While many Twitter users, most hailing from former colonies or tracing their ancestry to British-occupied places, agreed with Dr Anya’s mentions of historical genocide and violence, the majority disagreed with her delivery.
One user, @Sumolaldowu, called the professor “uncouth and mannerless” and accused her of having “hate in your heart.”
“You speak of someone who just passed with such a vile and disdaining comment,” the user commented.
Another, @mariescully24, tweeted that, “at the end of the day she was a mother, grandmother, a great grandmother it’s totally disgusting to speak the way she has.”
Dr Anya did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
Benjamin Lindsay - 8h ago
The topic on "The View's" mind Friday morning was Queen Elizabeth II's death this week at the age of 96.
'The View' Host Sunny Hostin
While the talk show's hosts agreed that the queen lived a life deserving of respect and honor, Sunny Hostin highlighted how she's seen many negative reactions to her death online from various minority communities. She concluded that "we can mourn the queen and not the empire."
Also read:
Twitter Takes Down Tweet by Professor Wishing Queen Elizabeth an 'Excruciating' Death
Hostin began by remembering her time in London and being seduced by the nation's embrace of traditions like the royal family, the changing of the guard and more: "I think we all love glam and pageantry," she admitted. But she also said that the crown is not without criticism or controversy.
Related video: The View on Queen Elizabeth
When Ana Navarro later pointed out that the United States was similarly built on the backs of Black and brown people, Hostin emphasized, "And we want our reparations!" to applause from the studio audience.
She also reflected on the role that the newly crowned King Charles could play in alleviating these tensions.
Also read:
Queen Elizabeth II Through the Years (Photos)
"Right now, Charles is in a position - I think he has 14 colonies that he is now head of state, including Australia and Canada, I believe, if I'm correct. It's time for him to modernize this monarchy and it's time for him to provide reparations to all of those colonies," Hostin said. "I also think, you know, a monarchy, it's very easy to uplift one family, the harder thing is to uplift all families, and I think that he's in a position to be able to do that."
You can watch the full discussion - which also included how Charles should navigate his relationship with the estranged Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex - in the video above.
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Meghan Markle Dethrones Joe Rogan From Top of Spotify's US Podcast Chart
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