Last week, the Queen of England was all âhey black lesbian activist, youâre dope and I wanna give you an award and titleâ and the black lesbian was like âyeah thanks, but no thanks.â
OK, it didnât happen exactly like that, but thatâs pretty much the gist of it.
Related: Queen Elizabeth II Says Gay Marriage Is Absolutely âWonderfulâ
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah is an LGBT activist in the U.K. best known for founding U.K. Black Pride, and she has also served as a Rainbow List judge and Stonewall Trustee. Last week, she was one of 1,200 artists, activists, and other notables listed in the Queens New Yearâs Honors List.
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Opoku-Gyimah is happy to be noticed, but itâs complicated. As she told the U.K.âs Diva magazine:
âIf youâre a member of a minority â or multiple minorities â itâs important to be visible as a role model for others [and] for your successes to be seen. An honour is a very public statement that the establishment has decided that you, and what you do, are valued by the wider society. Youâve worked hard, and theyâve actually noticed.â
However, inclusion on the list comes with an MBE, which makes her known as a Member of the British Empire. And that she has exactly no time for:
ââŚMember of the British Empire? I donât believe in empire. I donât believe in, and actively resist, colonialism and its toxic and enduring legacy in the Commonwealth, where â among many other injustices â LGBTQI people are still being persecuted, tortured and even killed because of sodomy laws, including in Ghana, where I am from, that were put in place by British imperialists. Iâm honoured and grateful, but I have to say no thank you.â
Good for her, and her decision raises interesting questions about the line between celebrity and activism, and how easy it is to get sucked into the very structures some activists are trying to rise against.
Although weâre sure it wouldâve been pretty cool to be a Dame.
sfbeast
I surely respect her, especially for how she stated her reason to refuse. I think it’s one of those very hard decisions to make. There is nothing like a dame.
1EqualityUSA
Royal flush.
DarkZephyr
Very smart, very strategic. It shines light on a very important issue. I have MUCH respect for this woman.
broadshoulder
She saw it for the bullshit it is…
avesraggiana
Becoming an OBE or MBE does NOT confer on one the title, Dame or Sir. This lady would have had to have been conferred with the next higher title, DBE, Dame of the British Empire, to have the privilege of being addressed, “Dame Phyll.”
dean3000
Pure class
throwslikeagirl
Here is a true hero. What she did took courage and strength.
JerseyMike
Bravo!!
Merv
She’s reading way too much into it. It’s just an award for doing something notable.
mmedesevigne
Sorry, but this is a crock for the following reason:
In order to prevent precisely this kind of situation, no one “gets on” the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List without prior agreement. She would have been contacted beforehand and accepted the honour, which is how she got on the list in the first place. Once it was published, she then made a great show of declining it for her own propagandistic reasons. Ruthless Self-Promotion 1, Truth 0. There was nothing classy about her behaviour. Elizabeth II has always been, and her parents were before her, extremely supportive of gay and lesbian rights.
Kangol
Mad props to her! Keep doing the good work, and rejecting having anything to do with “empire,” especially of the British kind, which led to millions of deaths, colonization, and of course those heinous anti-gay laws all over the world (from the US to India to Nigeria and many parts in between)!
Scott McIntosh
Silly woman,most African nations were colonised in the 1880s ‘Scramble for Africa’ the British colonies would have had anti gay laws established then, These colonies became independent in the 1960s – 80-90 years later. They have now been independent and set their own laws ever since – that’s 50-60 years, they have had plenty of time to change the law; South Africa (independent from 1910) introduced equality as part of the majority rule constitution all the others have eitherleft the law as it was, or tried to make it worse (Uganda and Nigeria). Evidence shows that these regressive attitudes stem from American backed extremist christians in Uganda and extremist islam in Nigeria. Let her talk about that and I would have respect for her, as it is she is merely posturing
Scott McIntosh
Isn’t it about time US publications like Queerty learned enough manners to address foreign Heads of State in their correct title. HM Queen Elizabeth is Queen of the United Kingdom, not Queen of England, she is also Queen of Canada, so they might get to address their near-neighbour’s HoS correctly. How would the like it if we called their President ‘The elected bloke from Chicago’?
Xzamilio
Good for her… not often people take a real stand for something that genuinely matters.
John McIntosh
Even if we did impose homophobic laws on former empire countries, they have been independent for so long now so why do they still have homophobic laws and we don’t ?
clhs
You misspelled “honour”.
mmedesevigne
Americans spell it ‘honor’. The rest of the English-speaking world spells it ‘honour’. I am Canadian and this is a useless quibble, surely.
Kieran
@Scott McIntosh: Are you serious? The whole world refers to her as “the queen of England”. What planet do you live on?
You have to give this Afro-British activist credit for bringing attention to the fact that some of the most viciously homophobic hell holes on earth are members in good standing of the so-called “Commonwealth”. When was the last time Queen Elizabeth spoke against homophobia in her former colonies…..or in England itself for that matter?
Will L
@mmedesevigne: I’m with you on this.
SonOfKings
Uhm…Didn’t the awful British Empire abolish slavery before the American “democracy” (of the period) moved to do likewise?
mmedesevigne
You are correct. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire decades before the U.S. managed to do it.
Tobi
@Kieran: The whole world may refer to her as the Queen of England, and we all know what you mean, but the whole world is still wrong! Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island, along with 16 other countries, incl. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. etc. It’s as wrong as calling Obama the President of Chicago, thereby ignoring the other states.
Tobi
@mmedesevigne: It’s a British award and therefore it should be spelt with the “u”, ie. He honored the commitment and received the honour in return would be correct American English. đ
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