The sea of white faces outside Buckingham Palace singing God Save the King this weekend was revealing. During her reign, the Queen enjoyed mass appeal at home across communities with roots in the former empire and commanded respect, especially among those of a certain age. The the calypso-loving Elizabeth, who defied conventions and racist attitudes in 1961 to share a dance with Ghana’s pan-Africanist ruler Kwame Nkrumah, will continue to be held in affection.
However, King Charles III accedes to the throne in an altogether different time in history. He begins his reign with the record of more than 40 years’ worth of charitable work through the Prince’s Trust, helping young black people turn their lives around. Famous alumni such as the actor Idris Elba and theatre boss Kwame Kwei-Armah are enthusiastic advocates for the King’s commitment to diversity from personal experience.
Less than a fortnight ago, King Charles – then Prince of Wales – guest edited Britain’s only African and Caribbean newspaper, the Voice. It was a bold move, and one that attracted criticism from some in the community, but there was no doubt that he wanted to send a strong signal to black Britain that he was proud of his work and wanted it to be known.
The paper, of which I’m the editor, called him “an ally”, a phrase that also attracted some heat. I stand by that for this reason: it isn’t a laurel to sit on, but an incentive to keep acting in the interests of a community that has always faced significant barriers of deeply embedded racism. The condition of a community disproportionately battered by years of austerity, the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis is one reason for lack of visible mourning.
Another, certainly among younger generations, is the growing debate around enslavement, colonialism and institutional racism. Black Lives Matter was rooted in a critique of “racialised capital” that underpinned demands to defund the police or decolonise the curriculum. The treatment of the Duchess of Sussex by sections of the press and reportedly within the royal family itself did not show the British establishment to have taken heed of the conversations sparked by these events.
Gen Z, paying half their wages to the rentier class and the other half to energy companies, have no time for a hereditary anything. Add in that black youth are up to 19 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police, black children are twice as likely to grow up in poverty and black graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed, and you can see why many people of colour have other priorities.
The former monarch has been called a “coloniser Queen” by some, but that’s unfair. She was born into the empire, which decolonised itself. History will judge what role she played, but the smart money would be on her being seen as largely a bystander to history who, wisely, didn’t get in the way.
As a republican, I hold no candle for royalty, but royals are undeniably influencers. King Charles is our first post-colonial monarch and while his deep “personal sorrow” over the slave trade, partially carried out in the name of his family, stops well short of the apology many continue to demand, it was hopefully an incremental move in the right direction.
Ultimately, if there is to be a serious conversation about reparations – as the Barbados prime minister, Mia Amor Mottley, called for in the Voice – it needs to start with a genuine apology from the UK government. Maybe the interventionist King can broker a joint apology from the royals and government? Now that would be living up to his status as an ally. I suspect the rump of countries still with the monarch as head of state will take the corrective action that Barbados did recently, but the Commonwealth will survive only because a club still has its uses.
The new King should embrace a national conversation to reset the relationship between royalty and “subjects” – issue a joint apology from government and royal family for slavery and colonialism, and champion, as he has previously done, more equitable black representation. His reign should bring reform so that the monarchy changes to reflect the ways in which his country already has.
Lester Holloway is editor of the Voice
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