THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN IN THE 21st CENTURY
The women's movement high jacked the civil rights movement. It came at a time when blacks were hitting their stride. Shifting focus is a major problem for a movement and can set it back and stall it indefinitely. Leaving the people who created it feeling incomplete. White people dont think about black peoples issues. Black people dont think about womens issues. And the struggles gays face rarely register on heterosexuals radar.
At first i was surprised to hear that white men are feeling victimized, and discriminated against. I thought 'how can that be possible? They have it all!' But then i realized that in this new age of being woke. All those groups are pointing the finger to them as the cause for their problems.
The U.S. is a white dominated society. And that society is dominated by white men. These men have had that dominate role since the very founding of the nation. I first read Rudyard Kiplings 'The White Mans Burden' in high school.
The poem was written in order to 'encourage the American colonization of the Philippine Islands.' But it was also used as a catalyst to promote and to justify 'Western colonialism and "Eurocentrism". The composition promoted Kipling's beliefs that the British Empire Is the Englishman's "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth." Including the United States.
The part that has stuck with me all these years is the stark warning the author gives about the 'good of the enterprise'. That it was worth the effort but cautioned to its readers to beware of the 'costs' that are involved. A cost which includes a heavy responsiblity of 'guiding the coloureds to civilization'. Whether these men accomplished this mission fully or not can be debated. But at the time, regardless of the price, the white men of america decided to take on the challenge.
The imperialist interpretation of "The White Man's Burden" (1899) proposes that the white man has a moral obligation to rule the non-white peoples of the Earth, whilst encouraging their economic, cultural, and social progress through colonialism.
But what to do with the contingent of peoples who rebelled? The first SJWs and BLM crowds of the time. Their complaints were tempered not by valid counter arguments or logic. But by brutal unspeakable punishment. And even if these 'trouble makers' took everything that their overlords prescribed. They were still mere captives in a white mans world. Black or female and your views and objections ment nothing.
Back then methods could easily be apply if any of these rab·ble-rous·ers got out of line. They were simply Hanged, lynched, feed to dogs, the whiped or beaten.
But nowadays in the new millennium those same penalties are nolonger acceptable. Centuries of amendments, revolutions, movements and evolution have slowly grinded away many of the brutal options that could be utilized to maintain the burdens 'moral obligation'. So the question is what is the white man to do now about these 'trouble makers'?
They have been freed. Given the right to vote. They've been educated. In other words they've been 'civilized'.
The once slaves are now an angry, frustrated people. Eagerly and passionately looking to blame the sins of the past squarely on the white mans shoulders.
But this generation of white men are upset that the foundation of privilege that their fathers and forefathers built for them is crumbling beneath their feet. And they are struggling to control an unfamiliar force that they have never faced in their history...their own creation.
I remember the first time i was told to 'go back to africa'. And my response has always been "ive never been to africa". The white mans response to blame for imperialism and the horrors it caused is "i wasnt alive when this was done. Ive done nothing wrong". Both are good, valid come backs. But both retorts have a terrible history behind them.
So what can these descendants of imperialists and patriarchy do? What methods is left to deal with the successors of slaves? The tactics so far seem to be shifting blame the victim, smear campaigns, name calling. How can white men be reduced to such things. To go from promoting such a grand idea. Implementing that idea for centuries, only seen it slowly dwindled away by reason and the passage of time. So they vent. Complain. And try desperately to hold on to as much of Kiplings vision as they possibly can.
Forced to resort to mass-shooting, the accassional shooting of an unarmed black man, using the n-word, and calling the cops for no good reason. It must be frustrating to see a system your forefathers built for the 'benefit' of the uncivilized; slowly coming home to roost on their own door step. We know what the females and the blacks went through and how they handled oppression. Now its time to see how white men handle their own adversity. All be it on a far lesser scale.
In "The White Man's Burden" Rudyard Kipling gave a 'somber warning' about the 'cost' of imperialism. Is it fair to criticize the people who are owed for demanding to be paid?
Where is that same old american can do spirit when it's time to pay up? Will the white men of this century carry on the 'devine burden' of guiding the females and the coloureds to civility like their ancestors before them? Or has the burden switch hands? And now become theirs?
- Jonathan donnell riley
The women's movement high jacked the civil rights movement. It came at a time when blacks were hitting their stride. Shifting focus is a major problem for a movement and can set it back and stall it indefinitely. Leaving the people who created it feeling incomplete. White people dont think about black peoples issues. Black people dont think about womens issues. And the struggles gays face rarely register on heterosexuals radar.
At first i was surprised to hear that white men are feeling victimized, and discriminated against. I thought 'how can that be possible? They have it all!' But then i realized that in this new age of being woke. All those groups are pointing the finger to them as the cause for their problems.
The U.S. is a white dominated society. And that society is dominated by white men. These men have had that dominate role since the very founding of the nation. I first read Rudyard Kiplings 'The White Mans Burden' in high school.
The poem was written in order to 'encourage the American colonization of the Philippine Islands.' But it was also used as a catalyst to promote and to justify 'Western colonialism and "Eurocentrism". The composition promoted Kipling's beliefs that the British Empire Is the Englishman's "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth." Including the United States.
The part that has stuck with me all these years is the stark warning the author gives about the 'good of the enterprise'. That it was worth the effort but cautioned to its readers to beware of the 'costs' that are involved. A cost which includes a heavy responsiblity of 'guiding the coloureds to civilization'. Whether these men accomplished this mission fully or not can be debated. But at the time, regardless of the price, the white men of america decided to take on the challenge.
The imperialist interpretation of "The White Man's Burden" (1899) proposes that the white man has a moral obligation to rule the non-white peoples of the Earth, whilst encouraging their economic, cultural, and social progress through colonialism.
But what to do with the contingent of peoples who rebelled? The first SJWs and BLM crowds of the time. Their complaints were tempered not by valid counter arguments or logic. But by brutal unspeakable punishment. And even if these 'trouble makers' took everything that their overlords prescribed. They were still mere captives in a white mans world. Black or female and your views and objections ment nothing.
Back then methods could easily be apply if any of these rab·ble-rous·ers got out of line. They were simply Hanged, lynched, feed to dogs, the whiped or beaten.
But nowadays in the new millennium those same penalties are nolonger acceptable. Centuries of amendments, revolutions, movements and evolution have slowly grinded away many of the brutal options that could be utilized to maintain the burdens 'moral obligation'. So the question is what is the white man to do now about these 'trouble makers'?
They have been freed. Given the right to vote. They've been educated. In other words they've been 'civilized'.
The once slaves are now an angry, frustrated people. Eagerly and passionately looking to blame the sins of the past squarely on the white mans shoulders.
But this generation of white men are upset that the foundation of privilege that their fathers and forefathers built for them is crumbling beneath their feet. And they are struggling to control an unfamiliar force that they have never faced in their history...their own creation.
I remember the first time i was told to 'go back to africa'. And my response has always been "ive never been to africa". The white mans response to blame for imperialism and the horrors it caused is "i wasnt alive when this was done. Ive done nothing wrong". Both are good, valid come backs. But both retorts have a terrible history behind them.
So what can these descendants of imperialists and patriarchy do? What methods is left to deal with the successors of slaves? The tactics so far seem to be shifting blame the victim, smear campaigns, name calling. How can white men be reduced to such things. To go from promoting such a grand idea. Implementing that idea for centuries, only seen it slowly dwindled away by reason and the passage of time. So they vent. Complain. And try desperately to hold on to as much of Kiplings vision as they possibly can.
Forced to resort to mass-shooting, the accassional shooting of an unarmed black man, using the n-word, and calling the cops for no good reason. It must be frustrating to see a system your forefathers built for the 'benefit' of the uncivilized; slowly coming home to roost on their own door step. We know what the females and the blacks went through and how they handled oppression. Now its time to see how white men handle their own adversity. All be it on a far lesser scale.
In "The White Man's Burden" Rudyard Kipling gave a 'somber warning' about the 'cost' of imperialism. Is it fair to criticize the people who are owed for demanding to be paid?
Where is that same old american can do spirit when it's time to pay up? Will the white men of this century carry on the 'devine burden' of guiding the females and the coloureds to civility like their ancestors before them? Or has the burden switch hands? And now become theirs?
- Jonathan donnell riley
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