The “white man’s burden”

(from Race: The Power of an Illusion: The Story We Tell)
- “The White Man’s Burden” is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. It was a rallying cry for empire and racial justification to send American troops across the pacific to put down the Filipino rebels fighting for independence from the US.
- Americans seized on this phrase because it embodied the country’s new role as a world power.
- “TAKE UP THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN, SEND FORTH THE BEST YE BREED, GO, BIND YOUR SONS TO EXILE, TO SERVE YOUR CAPTIVES' NEED. TO WAIT IN HEAVY HARNESS, ON FLUTTERED FOLK AND WILD YOUR NEW-CAUGHT SULLEN PEOPLES, HALF-DEVIL AND HALF-CHILD. “
- Kipling wrote the poem to try and encourage the US to annex the Philippines. Fredrickson said that “clearly it probably provided more support for those who wanted to take on the white man’s burden. Because of some of the imperialists said, ‘Oh, we can bring them along, maybe not to equality, but our brown little brothers, we can advance them in civilization’”.