UK royals back BLM, says aide, months after Meghan row
LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II and Britain’s royal family support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a representative of the monarch said in extracts from a TV interview.
Ken Olisa, the first Black LordLieutenant of London, told Channel 4 News in an interview that he had discussed the topic of racism with the UK royals in the aftermath of protests triggered in the US following the death of George Floyd - a Black man who was killed in 2020 when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.
His death galvanised a protest movement against the unjust deaths of Black people at the hands of law enforcement.
According to the news channel’s press release, when Olisa was asked if the palace supported BLM, he said, “The answer is easily yes. It (race) is a hot conversation topic. The question is what more can we do to bind society to remove these barriers.”
He said that the British royals “care passionately about making this one nation bound by the same values”.
The most damaging accusation in Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in March this year was that an unnamed royal had asked them about the skin colour of their then-unborn son.
The queen then responded with a brief statement saying that “the issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning” and that the family would discuss the matter in private.
While saying that the family was saddened by Meghan and Harry’s difficulties over the last few years, she had added that “some recollections may vary”.
The only other response was from Prince William, who said that “we’re very much not a racist family”.
Olisa added that the queen had asked his advice about whether she should visit the site of a catastrophic fire in London in 2017 where 72 died in a tower block - most of them Black or Asian or from other ethnic minorities.
“I remember thinking as it all happened, it was quite scary, we didn’t know whether she would be booed or have things thrown at her, and when she got out of the car, all these people applauded,” Olisa said.
Racism is most prevalent in countries linked to the former trade of an estimated 25-30 million Africans for enslavement or colonialism, resulting in large communities of people of African descent in countries such as Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Colombia, France and the US, a UN report said last year.