Saturday 10 September 2022 09:25 PM British historian Andrew Roberts wipes the floor with Ali Veshi for ... trends now

A British historian slammed woke MSNBC host Ali Velshi on live TV Saturday for only 'concentrating on the negatives' after he began a special on the Queen's legacy by condemning the history of the royal family.

Velshi began his special on the Queen's legacy Saturday talking about her long reign and saying she 'was a constant for the British people.

'She endeared herself to the public, and her popularity is unmatched by any other member of the royal family,' Velshi, a Canadian-American, mused.

But, he then added: 'As beloved as Elizabeth was, she also represented an institution that had a long and ugly history of brutal colonialism, violence, theft and slavery.

'For many centuries, the British robbed other nations of their wealth and power, and exploited their people,' he continued.  

'Even as Queen Elizabeth's reign largely marked the beginning of the post colonial era, the horrors that her long line of ancestors inflicted upon many generations of people across the globe continues to be the source of pain.

Following those remarks, Velshi shared a clip of the new king's speech upon taking the throne, before introducing his guest, NBC British Historian Andrew Roberts, who disputed much of what the MSNBC host said.

Velshi asked him about the idea that 'there are many people who are Queenists; they're not monarchists,' people who liked Elizabeth, but do not necessarily like the institution.

But Roberts responded that Velshi's assertion is simply not true.

'I think when you look at all the opinion polls, we're about 80 to 85 percent in favor of having a constitutional monarchy — whoever's on the throne,' he began. 'So I think this is extremely overdone, frankly.

'Rather, I'm afraid to say, as your introduction was, if we had given so much pain to people throughout history, why was Prince Charles chosen by every single Commonwealth country — many of which are former imperial countries?' 

The comments seemed to make Velshi irate, telling Roberts to 'hold on a second.

'Are you really denying what I just said about British colonialism?' an exasperated Velshi asked his guest. 'Andrew, are you really doing that?'

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As Roberts continues to say the UK abolished slavery more than 30 years before the United States did, Velshi seems to become more upset telling him: 'Andrew this is not a propaganda show,' and 'Andrew I need you to stop!

'I need you to stop for a second,' he interrupts his guest. 

'Are you really taking issue with the horrors of colonialism?' he asks, to which Roberts replies: 'I'm taking issue with your remarks about slavery, which we abolished 32 years before you did.

'We didn't have to kill 600,000 people in a civil war over it,' he added.

But Velshi was not giving up.

'So you think that  that's fine, that there are people all over the world who are born in colonial countries?' he asked. 'Because when I was born, the British Empire still existed.

'And that's OK for everybody to say.'

Roberts, though, asked Velshi which country he was born in, and when Velshi said he was born in Kenya, Roberts noted that 'the Kenyans not only supported the appointment of Prince Charles, now King Charles, as the head of the Commonwealth, we've [also] just had a fantastic statement from the president of Kenya saying what a wonderful thing —'

Velshi then interrupted to note that President Biden is also going to the Queen's funeral, to which Roberts asked: 'Then why on Earth do you want to concentrate on the only negative things of an institution, which is 100 years ago now?'

At that point, Velshi claimed he didn't concentrate on just the negative aspects of the monarchy, asserting: 'I said there are many people in the world, many millions of people in the world — I don't know if you have social media, but you should check it out — who don't think we should be celebrating the British monarch right now.

'And many in Britain by the way, many in Britain,' Velshi asserted.

'No, not many in Britain — where are these people in Britain?' Roberts shot back. 'You know, as I said, between 10 and 15 percent of the people don't want a monarch.'

Velshi then accused Roberts of 'dismissing' the view points of those 10 to 15 percent of the British population, but Roberts said: 'I think if 80 or 85 percent of people believe anything you'll far more likely and far more right to concentrate on them rather than the tiny minority.'

He went on to compare the minority of people who do not support the monarchy to people who believe in 'zoastrianism,' an ancient Iranian religion.

At that point, Velshi seemed to decide it was time to agree to disagree, saying: 'So I actually think one of the failings of our history is that we don't concentrate on minorities or the views of minority. So you and I will differ in that.

'I actually think that when there are minorities who don't see things the same way as everyone else, we should actually shine a light on them.' 

Still, Roberts doubled down, as he began: 'On a great national occasion like this, I really think to concentrate on hat 10 percent of people rather than what 80 to 85 percent of people say —

But Velshi then once again interrupted him, claiming: 'There's a lot more people in the world who don't see it the same way, who grew up under the yoke of colonialism and the British Empire.'

Yet, as Roberts noted, 'leaders of the entire world are writing to, even evil monsters like Putin, are writing to King Charles and saying what a great thing his mother's reign was' as Velshi had began his opening.

'In your intro, you had to talk about the great imperial family to which we all belong,' Roberts said, 'You know, the idea that this is in some way an attack on our past is further negative.'

Rather than hear the rest of what Roberts was going to say, though, Velshi once again cut him off, saying: 'Well, it's nice to be able to whitewash that sort of thing, Andrew.

'And I'm glad you closed off with the idea that even Vladimir Putin had nice things to say about the Queen — that sort of steals the conversation for us.' 

The MSNBC host seemed intent to bring up the idea of colonialism when remembering the Queen, later prompting Birmingham City University professor Kehinde Andrews to speak about the role it played.

He asked the black Social Sciences professor: 'How do you express colonialism? What; the short term of the effect of colonialism today? Was it bad.'

Velshi then quickly added: 'I draw the conclusion, that yes it was bad.'

'Of course colonialism's bad. It was terrible,' Andrews responded. 'And if you jut look at the map of the world by GDP per capita, the poorest countries today are in so-called Sub-Saharan Africa, where the black people live and the richest countries are the west, where the white people live.

'We literally have a world which is in the image of white supremacy,' he said, blaming the monarchy by saying it 'came from the colonial era, and the Royal Family unfortunately, and the Queen in particular symbolizes that system.

'That's one of the reasons she's so popular, is 'cause she is a throwback to those colonial times when Britain was great and Britain dominated the world,' he asserted. 'And you cannot separate that history from the poverty that we see around the world today.'

Later on in the segment, Velshi asked the British professor to comment on whether you can 'like the Queen, you can honor the fact that someone has passed,' while also thinking 'she didn't forsake the institution that was responsible for colonialism.'

At that point, Andrews revealed he did not, actually, have to reconcile the two thoughts because he is not found on the Queen.

'I don't have any affection for the Queen, and that's nothing personal against her,' he said. 'I don't know her, none of us know her, right? And it's sad that someone's passed away, but that affection doesn't exist for many of us.'

Andrews went on to explain how his grandmother grew up in 'colonial Jamaica' and was 'taught to revere the Queen.

'She had a picture of the Queen on her wall until she died,' he said. 'Bu we grew up very different. We understand what the Queen was' he claimed, adding: 'Royalists and the monarchy represents the racism that my generation faced.'

Then, addressing Velshi's original question, Andrews explained: 'There is no conflict. We don't, we never have seen  the Queen as someone who represents us, s someone who should represent us.

'And she has died, and it's sad, but there is literally no conflict.

'This is somebody who represented white supremacy and colonialism, and as you said, didn't give reparations, didn't give up her wealth, didn't give up her power. She reveled in it.

'And I'm not sure why I should be sad today, and millions of us in this country have exactly the same feeling as me, I would say.' 

Velshi's apparent vendetta comes amid a woke brigade seeking to attack the monarch, with a University of Michigan education professor even comparing the monarchy to the Confederacy in the United States.

'Telling the colonized how they should feel about their colonizer's health and wellness is like telling my people that we ought to worship the Confederacy,' Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, an associate professor of education, tweeted on Thursday.

'"Respect the dead" when we're all writing these tweets *in English*,' she continued. 'How did that happen, hm? We just chose this language?'

Following backlash for the tweet, she later added: 'You don't see me dancing on anyone's grave because my ancestors' enslaver removed us in the 18th Century. You also don't see me policing other people's emotions.' 

Meanwhile, Eugene Scott, a national politics reporter for the Washington Post asked: 'Real question for the "now is not the appropriate time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism" crowd: When is the appropriate time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism?'

And American filmmaker Boots Riley tweeted about the Queen's death on Thursday, writing: 'The matriarch of a royal family legacy of slave-trading, imperialism, colonialism, theft, symbol of opulence and mascot for the ruling class is dead.

'The media will now parade the queen's zombie ass in front of u while telling u that overthrowing capitalism is not what we need.'     

A slew of others have also taken to social media to attack and mock the Queen as news rolled in about her tragic death.  

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's former aide, for example, wrote: 'I cannot imagine what my Irish grandparents would be feeling' and Jemele Hill, a contributing

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