What Does the Coronation Really Mean?

I was born and raised in Washington, D.C. On June 2, 1953, when I was eight years old, I went across the street to a neighbor’s house and watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on the neighbor’s black and white TV. We didn’t get our first TV until I was eleven years old.

I don’t know how many people are alive today who can watch another British monarch being crowned, but one of them won’t be me. I tuned in a minute ago and watched about 30 seconds while the crowd in Westminster Abbey was singing a hymn which is the musical rendition of the 103rd Psalm and then I turned it off.

Frankly, I find the whole thing disgusting and the celebration of the link between religion, political governance, and whiteness more than I can stand.

Yea, yea, I know it’s all about tradition, and we should be grateful that in an age of turbulence, that we can take a moment to reflect on things about the world which, thanks to God, remain the same.

Know what remains the same thanks to the history and behavior of the British Crown? The fact, as we have found out in the last eight years thanks to Donald Trump, that racism and racialist hatred continues to infect the minds and behavior of too many people in the United States.