Introduction to Asian American Studies: Final Zine Project (5) - Delaney Tax - Maria Zesbaugh - Ashley Montrezza

Excerpt from "White Man's Burden"

Exerpt from "Brown Man's Burden" Pile on the brown man’s burden Compel him to be free Let all your manifestoes Reek with philanthropy And if with heathen folly He dares your will dispute Then in the name of freedom Don’t hesitate to shoot Pile on the brown man’s burden, And if his cry be sore, That surely need not irk you Ye’ve driven slaves before Seize on his ports and pastures The fields his people tread Go make from them your living  And mark them with his dead

Take up the White Man’s burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go send 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 Take up the White Man’s burden In patience to abide To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride ;By open speech and simple An hundred times made plain To seek another’s profit And work another’s gain Take up the White Man’s burden— And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard—

Media played a vital role in the American imperialist imaginary, and colonizers and anti-imperialists worked to define and dismantle concepts of otherness and allegiance.  “White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling is an iconic example of pro-imperialist media that romanticized and justified the colonization of the Philippines. In this excerpt, Kipling characterized Filipinos as “half devil and half child,” contributing to the colonial framework that Filipinos were both infants that needed to be saved and trained, as well as an other-than-human group. Kipling was British, but his poem encouraged the U.S. to join a league of developed countries colonizing the world. He framed colonization as a difficult and draining duty that was completed for the sake of the world, rather than for social and economic gain. In response to this poem, the London Truth published this anti- imperialist parody titled “Brown Man’s Burden.” It recognized “the hypocrisy … of a civilizing mission (Lee 47)” and highlights a repeated history. “Brown Man’s Burden” works to compare the experience of the colonized Filipino with the experience of the African American. Filipinos are racialized by U.S. soldiers in the same way that Black people were racialized by white people. This type of media aids in a discussion of transracial solidarity under the violence of white supremacy.