XPost: alt.history.what-if
What could Queen Elizabeth done differently 1952 to 2002 to avoid the
evil 'wokesters'?
(Or at least, as I recall, the rules say topics should be 20 years
old? !!)
IMHO, this "woke" Uju Anya is evil.
from
What If 'Wokeness' was not allowed as an excuse to 'meanness' ?
The quote is “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping
genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”
I do not recall any acts that Queen Elizabeth II did that extended
any thieving and raping by the British Empire.
from
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2022/09/12/carnegie-mellon-university-professor-tweet-queen-elizabeth-ii-uju-anya-free-speech-higher-education/stories/202209110207
Thousands sign petition defending Carnegie Mellon University professor
whose tweet about dying queen went viral
Photo of Bill Schackner
BILL SCHACKNER
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
bschackner@post-gazette.com
SEP 12, 2022 7:53 AM
This story will be updated.
Nearly 4,000 people have signed a petition defending Uju Anya, a
Carnegie Mellon University professor whose viral tweet about a dying
queen Elizabeth II — wishing her “excruciating” pain — drew scorn but also touched off a debate about free speech on college campuses.
The signees — a mix of academics and alumni from various institutions in
the U.S. and beyond — say Ms. Anya is a highly accomplished scholar and
a force for diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of linguistics.
The electronic petition and an accompanying letter said Ms. Anya’s
tweet, sent from her personal Twitter account, spoke to personal anguish
the Nigerian-born scholar still feels about atrocities by the British
Empire decades ago that touched her family.
In this December 2012 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II looks up
and waves to members of staff of The Foreign and Commonwealth Office as
she ends an official visit which is part of her Jubilee celebrations in
London.
Bill Schackner
Carnegie Mellon professor’s critical tweet about the queen causes
firestorm over social media and free campus speech
“As colleagues at other institutions, one thing that sticks out to us is
that universities have nothing to gain by calling out individual
employees on free speech—especially when they can be seen doing it selectively—as is the case for CMU. Professor Anya’s twitter clearly states: ‘Views are mine,’” the letter reads in part. “Yet, her institution took up the charge to admonish a Black woman professor,
calling her response to her lived experiences of the real and tangible
impacts of colonialism and white supremacy, ‘offensive and
objectionable.’ This is unacceptable and dehumanizing.
“Simultaneously, the institution arguing that Professor Anya’s critical reflections were ‘not representative of the level of discourse at CMU’ forces us to ask: Where is the space for this sort of discourse if not
within the free speech that academia purports to uplift?”
Ms. Anya’s tweet, sent shortly before the queen’s death was announced Thursday, set off a furor online. Some called her remarks disgusting,
ill-timed and unjustified.
Her initial tweet read, “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”
In a statement Thursday, Carnegie Mellon said free expression is at the
core of the mission of higher education — but also said it does not
condone the message.
The tweet that sparked the outrage as well as reactions to it from all
sides speak to conflicted feelings in parts of the world about British
empire rule and colonization in a period that included the 1950s when
the Queen ascended to the throne.
In many quarters of the world, she was revered as a monarch of grace,
longevity and resilience. But her death also has brought to the surface lingering bitterness in parts of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, The
Associated Press reported.
Queen Elizabeth II in 2011.
Jesse Bunch
Carnegie Mellon University professor's critical tweet about Queen
Elizabeth II goes viral
For instance, The AP wrote that in Kenya, where decades earlier a young Elizabeth learned of her father’s death and her new role as queen, a
lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document
from 1956. It was issued four years into the queen’s reign, The AP
wrote, and well into Britain’s harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.
“Movement permit,” the document read, according to The AP. More than 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, and
others, like Mugo’s grandmother, were forced to request British
permission to go from place to place.
“Most of our grandparents were oppressed,” Mugo tweeted in the hours
after the queen’s death Thursday. “I cannot mourn.”
Ms. Anya told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in an email Friday that she is
the child and sibling of survivors of genocide in her native Nigeria.
“From 1967-1970, more than 3 million civilians were massacred when the
Igbo people of Nigeria tried to form the independent nation of Biafra,”
she wrote. “Those slaughtered included members of my family. I was born
in the immediate aftermath of this genocide.”
But others saw her tweet as unforgivable, coming as England had just
entered a national period of mourning over the 96-year-old queen. Some
called for Carnegie Mellon to discipline or fire her. The school issued
a statement repudiating the tweet by Ms. Anya, the associate professor
of second language acquisition.
“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by
Uju Anya today on her personal social media account. 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.”
University officials have not said if she will face sanctions.
The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
has urged Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian in a letter not to
sanction Ms. Anya, even if her words were offensive.
Bill Schackner:
bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter @Bschackner
First Published September 12, 2022, 7:53am
Queen Elizabeth II in a 2018 file photo1NEWS
Thousands sign petition defending Carnegie Mellon professor whose tweet
about dying queen went viral
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