Queen Elizabeth's death revives criticism of Britain's legacy of colonialism

As the death Thursday of Queen Elizabeth II prompted an outpouring of grief from millions across the world, it also revived criticism of her legacy, highlighting the complicated feelings of those who saw her as a symbol of the British colonial empire — an institution that enriched itself through violence, theft and oppression.

"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, an associate professor of second language acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University, tweeted Thursday afternoon.

Her tweet had been retweeted more than 10,000 times and had garnered nearly 38,000 likes by Thursday evening.

In an interview Thursday, Anya, 46, said that she is "a child of colonization" — her mother was born in Trinidad and her father in Nigeria. They met in England in the 1950s as colonial subjects who were sent there for university. They married there and moved to Nigeria together.