HOME / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

'Wasn't a lie': Sonny Hostin DEFENDS Uju Anya's tweet wishing the Queen had 'excruciating' death

Sonny Hostin defended the tweet, saying it wasn't a lie and that it was a 'thieving, raping, genocidal empire' the Queen ruled over

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: Sunny Hostin, a co-host on The View, defended Carnegie Mellon College lecturer Uju Anya who unleashed a Twitter storm after she sent a derogatory tweet on Thursday, September 8, just before the Queen's death, hoping the monarch's dying moments would be "excruciating."

The first to bring up the tweet was co-host Sara Haines in the context of the panel discussing the legacy of the Queen vs the legacy of the empire, including colonialism that the Queen oversaw. Haines first read the tweet, which said, "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating." She then commented, saying, "I thought, that is answering with such a hateful heart." She continued saying that what she found more "more shocking" was the "the tens of thousands of likes" the tweet got. However, Sonny Hostin was quick to defend the tweet, saying the tweet "wasn't a lie" and that the British empire was a "thieving, raping, genocidal empire."

READ MORE 

Hillary Clinton shocked after Andy Cohen reveals he had 'liaison' with her secret service agent

King Charles III told Prince Harry Meghan Markle was 'not welcome' at Balmoral to see dying Queen

Instead of criticising the professor, Hostin advised people to "separate the Queen from the empire". She had earlier said, "I think we can mourn the Queen and not the empire, because if you really think about what the monarchy was built on, it was built on the backs of black and brown people.” She took specific problem with the Imperial State Crown and the Queen’s sceptre. She said, “She wore a crown of pillaged stones from India and Africa. And now what you’re seeing, at least in the black communities that I’m a part of, they want reparations.”

The British monarch's main crown is the Imperial State Crown. The Queen was shown holding the sceptre and jewel-encrusted crown during her 1953 coronation. The 1937 crown created for the Queen Mother is topped with an Indian Koh-i-Noor diamond, and the Nice Star of Africa is embedded in the Queen's sceptre. The Koh-i-Noor is a part of the Treaty of Lahore, and the Imperial State Crown, together with a wand, serves as the primary symbols of the British monarch's authority over their 'realm'.

However, Haines criticized the professor for stooping to the level of violent words in her "discourse" as an academic. "This was an educator and a leader," said Haines before saying the university itself had said that the tweet did not "represent the values of the institution nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster." Haines argued that the professor was not an "average citizen" but rather "an academic who leads young people."

As the Queen was in her final hours, Anya's offensive comment sparked a whirlwind of outrage and shed light on earlier attempts by a large group of people to have the outspoken educator sacked from her teaching position for using violent language.

Uju Anya is a second language acquisition affiliate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The university has not taked any punitive action against her though Twitter removed the tweet for violating their guidelines by "wishing harm" on someone on the platform. The university was also quick to tweet a statement that they did not condone the "offensive and objectional" tweet by Uju Anya.

"Free expression is core to the mission of upper training," they mentioned, indicating Anya probably wouldn’t see penalties for her tweet. "...however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the establishment, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster," they concluded.