Royal Commentator Scorches Don Lemon over Reparations Suggestion

CNN host Don Lemon appeared dumbfounded after royal commentator Hilary Fordwich hit back with historical facts in response to his suggestion the royal family use its wealth to pay slavery reparations.

In a news segment on Monday evening, a day after Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey, CNN anchor Don Lemon floated the notion of using the royal family’s wealth to offer “reparations” for slavery.

“Well, this is coming when, you know, there’s all of this wealth and you hear about it, because England is facing rising costs of living, a living crisis, austerity budget cuts and so on,” he said. “And then you have those who are asking for reparations for colonialism and they’re wondering, you know, $100 billion, $24 billion here and $500 million there….”  

“Some people want to be paid back and members of the public are wondering, ‘why are we suffering when you are, you know, you have all of this vast wealth?’” he added. “Those are legitimate concerns.”

In response, British royal commentator and global business analyst Hilary Fordwich suggested that in order for reparations to be effective and fair, it would be necessary to find the culprits at “the beginning of the supply chain.”

“Well, I think you’re right about reparations,” she replied. “In terms of if people want it, though, what they need to do is you always need to go back to the beginning of a supply chain.”

“Where was the beginning of the supply chain?” she asked. “That was in Africa.”

Fordwich, an expert on the Royal Family, continued:

And when–across the entire world–when slavery was taking place, which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery? It was started by William Wilberforce–it was the British. In Great Britain they abolished slavery. Two thousand naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because the African kings were rounding up their own people. They had them on cages, waiting in the beaches. No one was running to Africa to get them. 

Consequently, the royal expert argued, reparations could be paid by African nations to descendants of slaves as well as families of the white British sailors who fought and died to abolish slavery.  

“I think you’re totally right,” she told Lemon. “If reparations need to be paid, we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say who was rounding up their own people and having them handcuffed in cages?” 

“Absolutely, that’s where they should start,” she added. “And maybe, I don’t know, the descendants of those families where they died in the high seas trying to stop the slavery — that those families should receive something too, I think, at the same time.”

When she concluded her response, Lemon appeared stumped, slowly attempting to sign off with the quick guest.

“It’s an interesting discussion, Hillary,” he said, providing no response to her suggestion, and adding, “We’ll continue to discuss in the future.”

Historically, Britain did far more than any other country to stamp out the practice of slavery, paying in lives and treasure to shut down not just the Atlantic slave trade but the Barbary and East African slave trades as well.

After the passage of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807, the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave trade ships and freed some 150,000 African slaves.

During the process of freeing slaves, some 1,587 British sailors in the squadron lost their lives.

In March, British comedy legend John Cleese had his mic taken by woke co-panellists at an event in Austin, Texas, after pointing out that British imperialism was not unique and that the British, too, were once slaves.

Last year, UK’s Labour Party called on Britain to apologize for her empire, pay reparations to former colonies, and introduce a new constitution which virtually abolishes the monarchy and various other aspects of British heritage.

In 2020, during a “reparations rebellion” protest in London, Extinction Rebellion and BLM climate change activists demanded that financial institutions pay reparations for their role in the slave trade.