‘The View’ Highlights Backlash to Prince William, Kate Middleton’s Royal Tour of Jamaica: “Make Reparations”

Prince William and Kate Middleton have been forced to cancel recent stops on their Caribbean good will tour, as Jamaican protestors call on royals to redefine their relationship with the island and make reparations for their colonial past. That thorny topic led to some spirited debates on today’s episode of The View, as the ABC talk show’s hosts pondered what these protests could spell for the US.

“There’s a whole list of places that need to go on that list!” Whoopi Goldberg exclaimed, to which Sunny Hostin replied, “Starting with the United States of America… We built this joint for free.”

“How ’bout Puerto Rico?” Goldberg replied.

Hostin asserted that the US “bankrupted” Puerto Rico and “owe my family some money.”

She also called out the royals for making the PR decision to describe the current good will tour as a “charm offensive,” citing one of the main sources of their wealth: their company Royal Adventures in Africa, through which the royals transported approximately 90,000 slaves to British-owned plantations in the Caribbean. When slavery in Britain was abolished in 1834, they took out the modern equivalent of a $21 billion public loan to pay slave owners back, meaning British citizens were forced to pay it off.

“So Black people living in Britain paid reparations to slave owners,” Hostin explained. “They owe them money.”

As Goldberg noted, the effects of colonization have impacted people of color across Britain, such as British-Indians and other Caribbean communities.

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