Whoopi Goldberg said that someone in the British Royal Family should apologize for the UK's involvement in slavery.
The entertainer's comments came Friday (March 25) on The View as the panel discussed Prince William and Kate Middleton's week-long trip to the Caribbean. The Duke and Duchess have faced protests in Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas, as leaders and local communities' calls for apologies, decolonization, and reparations grow louder.
"We cannot ignore the fact that Britain ran ramshod in India for years," Goldberg said. "Let us not forget, when we talk about what needs to happen, all the folks that need to apologize."
"Listen, this is not new. I suspect Charles, when he was in Barbados, had some idea because he went on and apologized as he was releasing the hold that Britain has," she continued, referencing Prince Charles' November 2021 speech during Barbados' ceremony to remove Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. In the speech, Charles called out "the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history."
"So perhaps somebody is listening," Whoopi said, "and it's the new group of folks –– I don't know if it's Charles, William, but one of them is supposed to be the person."
On Wednesday (March 23), Prince William acknowledged slavery in a speech following a meeting with Prime Minister Andrew Holness who said in no uncertain terms that Jamaica would be making moves to remove the Queen as its head of state, too.
A letter signed by a hundred Jamaica professors, politicians, and activists said Britain owes the island nation billions of euros in reparations for its part in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
According to the BBC, Britain abolished slavery in 1833, but paid out slave owners an equivalent of $26.4 billion for the "loss of their 'property.'" Historians have traced the direct benefit those former slave owners' descendants had as a result of those payments –– including former Prime Minister David Cameron and author George Orwell.
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