The legacy of British colonial rule, which brought on centuries of slavery, continues to pervade daily life in its former colonies.
September 15, 2022, 5:51 PMJamaican school children greet Queen Elizabeth II at the National Heroes Monument in Kingston, Jamaica, Feb. 14, 1983, during the second day of the queen's visit to the former British colony., and people across the world have joined to remember and honor the ruler as a strong female figure for her service and duty during her reign.
Across the Commonwealth nations, her death has prompted the lowering of flags and mourning while also reigniting longstanding calls for a formal apology, reparations, and even independence from the monarchy. Bert Samuels, who identifies as a Pan-Africanist, is an attorney at law and member of Jamaica's National Council on Reparations.Bert Samuels, an attorney and member of Jamaica's Reparations Council, said there is a direct line between slavery in the Caribbean and the intergenerational poverty and systemic underinvestment in health and education that still plague its populations.
"We left the plantation on the first of August 1838, without any land, without education, and without any money," he told ABC News. "That is how nation building began in this impoverished island of Jamaica."Samuels also pointed to the royal family's alleged treatment of Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, who is biracial, as a modern instantiation of racism in the British monarchy.
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