“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin said on Friday that the British monarchy should pay reparations and claimed that Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday, wore a crown “built on the backs of black and brown people.”
The panel discussed the passing of the late Queen Elizabeth II, who died at the age of 96 at her holiday home in Balmoral, Scotland, after reigning more than 70 years. Hostin called for her son, King Charles III, to provide reparations to black and brown people to atone for the United Kingdom’s legacy of slavery and colonialism.
“I think we all love glam and pageantry and I think, though, we can mourn the queen and not the empire,” Hostin said. “Because if you really think about what the monarchy was built on, it was built on on the backs of black and brown people. She wore a crown with 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. You know, Barbados left the sort of, this monarchy, this colonization. Jamaica, I have a lot of Jamaican friends, that’s coming soon.”
She called on Charles III to “modernize” the monarchy and “uplift all families” by providing reparations to black and brown people. Co-host Joy Behar argued that Queen Elizabeth II opposed apartheid in South Africa but did not have the power to stop racial injustice. (RELATED: ‘The View’ Panel Pushes Back On Fellow Co-Host’s Outrage Over British Monarchy’s Past)
Co-host Ana Navarro added that the United States and the Roman Catholic Church were also “built on the backs of black and brown people.” She said King Charles III should address the issue of race and the history of slavery rather than “speaking to his plants.” Hostin argued that the king needs to reconcile his family following the allegations of racism brought forward by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Co-host Sara Haines criticized the conflation between the queen and the history of the monarchy, even as she condemned that history. Haines referred to a tweet by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University that called the U.K. “a thieving raping genocidal empire” and wished for her “pain to be excruciating.” Hostin argued that the tweet accurately described British history.
“But it was a thieving raping genocidal empire,” she said. “That’s true.”