Why Black Twitter had all the jokes following Queen Elizabeth II’s death

Social media users did not hold back after the royal transitioned
Why Black Twitter had all the jokes following Queen Elizabeth II's death
Queen Elizabeth II in 2007. (Image source: Shutterstock.com / Alessia Pierdomenico)

When Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8, 2022, tributes weren’t the only thing publicly shared on social media. There were jokes – and plenty of them.

When some social media users were confused by the jokes, the history lessons commenced. A DW News video from June reemerged. The story was about an elderly Kenyan woman, Muthoni Mathenge. Mathenge demanded Queen Elizabeth II compensate her for the torture she endured in the 1950s when Kenya was fighting for its independence from Britain. This violent exchange took place shortly after Queen Elizabeth II took the throne.


Mathenge said British troops hit her with an axe on her legs and repeatedly asked her to tell them where her husband, who was a soldier, was. The woman refused to surrender the information. Thousands of Kenyan civilians were placed in camps before eventually being killed. Although the British compensated thousands of Kenyans in 2013, Mathenge was not among them because she didn’t have a lawyer.

“Let her give me a just compensation,” Mathenge said, through a translator. “Because she is the ruler. Let her send me the compensation, and let it not be given to anyone else.”


Queen Elizabeth II also owns the largest clear-cut diamond in the world, which has a value of $400 million and was stolen from South Africa.

It’s also been reported Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana had a rough relationship.

Princess Diana said she was terrified of the Queen in the early days of being her daughter-in-law. When Diana was being cheated on by her husband Prince Charles, she fell into depression and suffered from bulimia and no one in the Royal Family came to her aid. Some historians said Queen Elizabeth wanted to help Diana, but with such a generational gap, she didn’t know how to communicate with her in a time of distress. After Diana died in a 1997 car accident, the Queen went silent for five days before the Prime Minister persuaded her to speak to the public. It’s also been said the Queen didn’t like how someone who married into the family upstaged the Royal Family, and never wanted it to happen again.

Now, here are the Diana-Elizabeth memes.

https://twitter.com/Peterpumping/status/1567849863353704449?s=20&t=ESmnuxXngQ0JVmNL_rzMbw

And more Queen Elizabeth II memes, headlined by jokes about late Chicago rapper King Von, who was famous for rapping about shooting a lot of people from his hometown.

https://twitter.com/jjuusssttttpain/status/1568017523534331905?s=20&t=ESmnuxXngQ0JVmNL_rzMbw

The backlash from the jokes and articles about the not-so-complimenting facts brought up about Queen Elizabeth II in the wake of her death were all brought into perspective with one tweet from Jemele Hill.

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Rashad Milligan
Rashad Milligan is an award-winning journalist who started with rolling out in 2017 before making stops at The Valley Times-News and the Clarion Ledger. He has also written for SB Nation's Peachtree Hoops and Sports Illustrated.
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