The visit of the British Crown Prince, HR Prince William, and his wife to Jamaica a few weeks ago was an insult to the nation-state. I say insult because their motive is not one of remorse for slavery and colonization and murder and destruction of Black families.
At a time when other countries have confessed to the evil of slavery and plantation economics and the atrocities committed to the Black slavery class for 400 or more years, the British ruling class including the House of Windsor and various British governments have never found it right in their conscience to apologize to Africa, the Caribbean and South America where the Black race were taken from their lands in Africa to serve as slaves to British White plantocracy.
Britain has demonstrated throughout its history that it does not care about its past and present action. Throughout the modern history of Britain and the post-war migration of Caribbean and African people to the United Kingdom, the fate of Black people was established by the ex-colonial masters. The UK action can first be observed by the way they treat the early immigrants.
Britain did not provide housing for the Caribbean workers who came to do the dirty work in British hospitals, Golden Age Homes, roadworks and factory jobs. The British white populace denied Black immigrants housing and basic amenities. To add salt to the wound Britain designated the worst secondary schools for immigrants’ education. For years, especially in the sixties and seventies, only a tiny minority, less than two percent, achieved a university education. It was even easier for someone from the Caribbean to access university education in the UK, than for a Black living in England to attend college. Black people were seen as cheap labor.
By the 1970s, the racist Nazi organization called the National Front drove fear in the lives of young immigrants as they were physically and verbally abused. Perhaps, the inability to access firearms by the average Briton prevented situations such as lynching that were part and parcels of other racist countries such as the USA. Despite the lack of a gun society as in England, the National Front did commit many assaults on young Black immigrants.
Britain throughout the post-war era also tried to exploit the remaining Black colonies by uncaring capitalism. The fact that most of the ruling class had financial investments in the Apartheid run companies in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana plus interest in Offshore banking in the Cayman Islands, Antigua, the Bahamas, Bermuda and the South Pacific meant these White people were intent on drawing out the last dollar from those who they ruled and governed. That was and still is the nature of the British.
Looking to continue the mental subjugation and bowing down to the Queen by Caribbean subjects the Prince’s visit is evidently a silent probe to discover the status of Jamaican view of the monarchy and view of a system that hangs over our head.
One must remember the British (by historical facts) are the most influential and cunning ethnic group. They have no interest nor intention to be sorry for what they did in history. Slavery in the Caribbean is not the only atrocities attributed to them – they also pillaged the minerals from Africa, seized the most arable lands, murdered thousands of Africans and today treat history like it was correct, like it’s a God-given right to exploit others, destroy others and marginalize others.
One has to remember that these royalties live a life of disconnect from the average man. They do not understand the lingering pains and legacy of slavery and colonialization and by far the extent of its economic damage to our people and the segregation by class and color.
At the passage of the emancipation, the planters and their stakeholders were given in today’s money 20 billion pounds for the loss of owning slaves. The ex-slaves got nothing for their sweat, blood, tears, hard work, and even the rapes committed on our women.
Today the royal family of Britain continues to flaunt the ill-gotten wealth and to rub salt into the painful wounds from slavery and economic depravation. How dare these Europeans expect modern-day Jamaicans to revere those who have nearly destroyed the Black race.
