A controversial university professor has doubled down on her celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s death, claiming she “sat on a throne of blood”.
Uju Anya, a linguistics professor at Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Mellon University, came under fire earlier this week for a series of controversial tweets in which she hoped the Queen was in “excruciating pain” as she died.
Now, the Nigerian-American lecturer has reiterated her claims on a podcast, saying, “This was a ruler. The very crown she had on her head signified the fact that she’s a monarch was made from plunder. Diamonds. Blood diamonds.”
“The throne that she was sitting on is a throne of blood… Her very position as a monarch, the palace she lived in… were all paid for by our blood.”
She stood by her controversial tweets, which she admitted were an “emotional outburst”, but said, “I said what I f****** said.”
“I was triggered by this news. It went deep into pain and trauma for me. Due to my family experience with the rule of this monarch.”
Anya also shared her thoughts on the Queen’s role in the Nigerian Civil War in 1967 by showing support for the turbulent government.
She said, “People expected me to be calm or to be… when the person who literally paid money for bombs and guns and military supplies to come and massacre your people is dying, you’re not supped to dance.”
Anya’s claims forced her employer to say in a statement, “We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her 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,” they concluded.
Despite thousands of people being up in arms over her comments and demanding an apology, others have jumped to the professor’s defence.
Over 4,000 people have signed a petition defending Anya, saying her posts on Twitter spoke to personal anguish the scholar still feels about atrocities by the British Empire decades ago that touched her family.
Refusing to apologise, Anya once again tweeted, “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.”
Image credits: Getty Images / Youtube
This article first appeared on OverSixty.