The White Man's Burden Race Quotes

This refrain neatly captures the poem's central thesis. It's up to white men (and white men only) to nobly shoulder the heavy load ("burden") of bringing the rest of the world up to his level. This attitude of racial superiority is behind nearly every social injustice that's been committed by one group against another.

Even without the title and the refrain, the descriptions of other races as "wild," "sullen," and "half-devil and half-child" are in and of themselves over-the-top racist. Native locals were seen as in need of civilizing, little better than animals who needed to be taught how to live... like white men.

This is a shot at the native people's intellects: "You'll have to speak slowly and repeat yourself a lot." Um, why don't you learn to speak Filipino, dude? The suggestion that one language should be dominant over another—especially in someone else's country—points to an attitude of racial superiority.

Sloths may be cute, but that's not what the speaker means here. He means laziness. And "heathen" means someone who is savage or uncivilized. The idea here is that, if the white men fail to take over a foreign people and convert them to their way of life, then it must be the fault of those lazy, good-for-nothing locals. That sounds racist to us.

The racism in these lines is actually pretty stunning, and it works on many levels. Firstly, although this refers to the biblical enslavement of the Jews at the hands of the Egyptians, we can't overlook the racist legacy of slavery in America and Europe. And yet, our speaker's racism doesn't stop there. Apparently, the native peoples actually like being slaves, which is why they are complaining that the White Man set them free (by… forcing them to adopt his way of life). These lines work like a racist layer cake, which nobody should want to eat.

Watch out, white men. Not only will you have a rough job, but you're going to be judged on how well you do it. This is an interesting dynamic, one that seems to suggest that the white men will have to make a good impression on the locals—presumably so that they can live up to the high regard our speaker has already bestowed upon them.