Amazon boss Jeff Bezos exchanged a couple of words with Twitter users who weren’t so sad about the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
About an hour before the news of the Queen’s death hit the internet, Bezos quoted a tweet from Carnegie Mellon professor Uju Anya.
“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying,” Anya wrote. “May her pain be excruciating.”
The tweet was removed due to violating Twitter rules.
According to Newsweek, Bezos responded by chastising the professor for her feelings.
“This is someone supposedly working to make the world better?” he tweeted. “I don’t think so. Wow.”
Dr. Anya didn’t back down from the billionaire and stuck to her stance.
“Otoro gba gbue gi,” she responded. “May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers.”
“Otoro gba gbue gi,” roughly translates to, “May you die of an uncontrollable running stomach.” It is the language of the Igbo people in Nigeria.
On her Twitter account, Dr. Anya describes herself as an “antiracist” and “feminist.” She was born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and a Trinidadian mother, according to HITC. Both countries were colonized by the British.
While Bezos collected his thoughts, other users came to the professor’s defense. The founder was quickly bombarded with tweets pointing to his wealth, influence and controversial business practices.
“You should probably stay quiet when it comes to critiques of empire + its overlords,” tweeted @corintxt.
“it’s INSANE that jeff Bezos tweets with us. a billionaire who blatantly and violently exploits workers and feels comfortable trying to have a morality battle on the bird app?” another user added.
“I stand with Uju Anya,” a third Twitter user wrote. “What Jeff Bezos did was absolute trash. It is the audacity to think that he can contribute to this conversation and attack her. Wtf?”
Dr. Anya also received backlash, as some users attacked her tweet’s timing and viciousness.
One user, @Sumolaldowu, called the professor “uncouth and mannerless” and accused her of having “hate” in her heart.
“At the end of the day she was a mother, grandmother, a great grandmother it’s totally disgusting to speak the way she has,” another Twitter user, @mariescully24, wrote.
Although her original tweet was removed, Dr. Anya still stood firm.
If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.
— Uju Anya (@UjuAnya) September 8, 2022
“If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star,” she wrote.
Before the end of the day, Dr. Anya’s employer, Carnegie Mellon, released a statement about the “free expression” of the professor.
A statement regarding recent social media posts by Uju Anya. pic.twitter.com/NinpPa4rZg
— Carnegie Mellon University (@CarnegieMellon) September 8, 2022
“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account,” the statement read. “Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster.”
