Virginia man claims African ‘kingdom’ to call daughter ‘princess’
OPINION - 7-year old Emily told her father, Jeremiah Heaton, that she wants to be a real princess. Instead of taking her to Burger King and ascending that throne by consuming fatty foods, the Virginia man traveled to Egypt...
Seven-year old Emily told her father, Jeremiah Heaton, that she wants to be a real princess.
Instead of taking her to Burger King and ascending that throne by consuming fatty foods, the Virginia man traveled to Egypt. He found an unclaimed piece of land, planted a flag and called it the Kingdom of North Sudan. Nobody’s king Jeremiah wanted to prove to his kids that “I will literally go to the ends of the earth to make their wishes and dreams come true.” Princess Emily got her wish and all was well.
Then everyone told Disney’s producers to shut the hell up because that’s really racist and they shouldn’t tell such tales. EXCEPT NO! This is a real story. Writers from “The Onion” didn’t whip this up. This happened in real life, and I haz the sads about it because everything sucks and people are the worst.
When I was 7, I’m pretty sure I wanted to eat candy and cake for breakfast everyday, but because my parents loved me and didn’t want all my teeth to fall out my head, they said “no.” It taught young Luvvie that I could not have everything I wanted all the time. And that my parents majored in hating and minored in killing any fun I wanted to have. They were Magna cum laude in ruining my plans. Anyway, it made me the slightly jaded, well-adjusted adult that I am today, and you are all welcome.
In raising children, there is a thin line between making them happy and spoiling them rotten by giving them every single thing their greedy hearts desire. I get that Jeremiah wants to give his kids the world, but he doesn’t have to do it literally. LORD! You can’t just be going around the world handing places over to your children. Well, unless you’re a middle-aged white man from America. The world is your oyster, ashtray and free lunch ticket that you can hand out as you wish.
He basically pulled a Columbus, showing up on another continent and claiming land to be his. The fact that he did it all to please a 7-year old who might forget she even made this princess wish in 6 months is just a mess of the highest order. What gift can top this, anyway? When she turns 9, is he going to get her a pony or try to expand her territory of reign? This man has even told people to call his daughter Princess Emily.
I’m a Disney fan as much as the next 80s kid who allows their amazing songs and awesome animation to cloud my judgment of their incredibly problematic stories. However, this princess dream is going a bit far. He could have just taken her to a store and bought her a pink frilly dress and one of those plastic crowns and called it a day, but nope.
What’s really grinding my gears about all of this, though, is the fact that this man felt like he could stroll to Africa and just grab some land. The Cradle of Civilization is not Monopoly or the flea market, and folks need to stop acting like they can live out random colonialist dreams there. He really went and created his own Zamunda, and I can’t even deal because that is the rudest thing ever.
When the Egyptian authorities gave this man permission to travel to the remote part of the dessert where the land was, did they know this was what he wanted to do? If so, why did they allow it? If not, how is his claim legal? I have questions. And so many side-eyes.
Again, I cannot get over how this is even possible. You can actually still go around the world planting janky homemade flags on places and declaring them to be yours? Did we fall into a space-time continuum and end up in the 1400s, before we had all figured out guidelines to this country thing?
White people can be admirably bold sometimes. Who else could think they should trek to another continent, find some land, put a flag on it and say TADA I’m ruler? White people. All up and down and through history. Maybe the rest of us are the ones who are living wrong. Maybe we’ve been passive punks this whole time by not going to random lands and trying to conquer them. Let me find out that we were supposed to be learning lessons of ruthlessness and how to be tone deaf jerks this whole time.
This whole thing just makes me facepalm repeatedly. Nothing must taste as good as white privilege feels. Last time I heard about something similar to this, maize came afterwards and turkeys started getting slaughtered once a year to celebrate it. Oh and a whole people were wiped out.
I hope Princess Emily doesn’t try to stake her claim to someone else’s locker with a sticker during high school.
Luvvie is a serial ranter and blogger who talks pop culture at Awesomely Luvvie, technology at Awesomely Techie and is the head behind DumbestTweets.com. She can also be found on Twitter (@Luvvie), Facebook and Instagram.
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