A professor from the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania came under fire after tweeting that Queen Elizabeth II should “die in agony.” The professor’s now-taken-down tweet was condemned by the university after it went viral, garnering backlash for insensitivity.
Dr Uju Anya tweeted on Thursday as reports emerged that the Queen was in her final hours at Balmoral. “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating,” the professor wrote before it was announced the Queen had died.
Twitter soon took down the tweet for violating its policy.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also responded to Anya’s original tweet, saying, “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so,” Bezos added. “Wow.”
Anya also doubled down in a response to Bezos, posted just minutes after Queen Elizabeth’s death was confirmed, writing: “May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers.”
Bezos, the third richest man in the world, did not immediately respond to Anya’s reply. He instead posted a separate tweet, “I can think of no one who better personified duty. My deepest condolences to all the Brits mourning her passing today.”
Anya’s Twitter bio reads “antiracist” and “feminist.” She was born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and mother from Trinidad and Tobago. Both countries were colonised by the British – Nigeria became independent in 1960, with Trinidad and Tobago following suit two years later.
