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Anorak News | The Virginia Queen: Bringing You Slavery, Genocide And Tobacco

The Virginia Queen: Bringing You Slavery, Genocide And Tobacco

by | 8th, May 2007

Her Majesty the Queen in on a tour of the old colonies in the United States. She’s in Jamestown, Virginia, the site of England’s first permanent colony in North America.

There is pomp and no little flag waving. But not all is harmonious. While Liz goes to watch the Kentucky Derby, she leaves behind some painful memories.

The Queen’s desire to escape to the safety of the world of horse racing is understandable. Compared to a punt even on a rank outsider, commemorating the arrival of a motley crew of 100 or so English renegades and outcasts on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in 1607 has proved to be fraught with risk. Not only is there the solemn complication of the campus shootings at nearby Virginia Tech, but there is the small matter of Jamestown being the birthplace of African slavery, Native American genocide and the global tobacco trade, as well as of North American democracy and free enterprise.

You doubltess noted that among the talk of slavery and genocide the writer makes mention of cigarettes and Cho Seung-Hui.

The only wonder is that this writer didn’t chuck in something about the War on Terror,  the British inventing the sandwich, and thus the obeseity-inducing burger, and creating global warming, sweat shops and vice by inventing the electric motor, sewing machine and the world wide web…



Posted: 8th, May 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink