Kipling's highly controversial poem was published in 1899, shortly after the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. When the United States defeated Spain, the Philippine archipelago was one of the Spanish territories that the US gained. In his poem, Kipling urges Americans to colonize the Philippines and establish an imperial regime, similar to the British Empire. Kipling's poem has been highly criticized for its racial prejudice, the insensitive, disparaging portrayal of indigenous people, and its promotion of the exploitative imperialist system.

In the poem, Kipling refers to the indigenous Natives as "sullen peoples" and calls them "Half-devil and half-child." These disparaging words and images not only degrade the Natives but also emphasize Kipling's racial prejudice. He also implies that the indigenous people are ignorant savages by instructing the white colonizers to speak slowly and repeat their phrases when interacting with them. He is completely ignorant of Native cultures and dismisses them as simple, ignorant fools. Kipling clearly believes that white Europeans and Americans are superior to other ethnicities and races and encourages white men to "civilize" the savage world.

Kipling also suggests that white colonizers are doing the Natives a favor and making great sacrifices "To seek another's profit, And work another's gain." Kipling's portrayal of imperialism is completely false and ruling nations have historically oppressed and profited from colonization. The primary goal of imperialism is to extract natural resources from a foreign land in order to benefit the ruling nation. Overall, Kipling is using racial superiority and a false narrative to promote the oppressive imperial system, which is why his poem has been highly criticized.

Why do you think Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden" was heavily criticized?

In 1899, when "The White Man's Burden" was published, the ideas of Imperialism the poem expresses were far more widely accepted than they are now. Nonetheless, they have never been uncontroversial, and the poem was condemned by liberals as soon as it appeared. "The White Man's Burden has been sung. Who will sing the Brown Man's?" asked Mark Twain in 1901, after two years of the war promoted by Kipling in the Philippines.

Looking at the poem, the assumptions it makes are quite extreme even for the standards of its time. It would take an obtuse critic not to see the paradox in the first stanza of the Imperialists waiting "in heavy harness" to serve their "captives." Kipling is aware that the colonies are captives, that they have been enslaved by military might, but he insists that it is the Western masters of these colonies who are in a harness and laboring under a burden. He then describes the colonized as:

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

This sanctimonious tone has infuriated many critics. Kipling is portraying Imperialism as a kind of martyrdom, as though the great powers of Europe and America had conquered Asian countries purely as a philanthropic endeavor. He does not merely justify colonization, he scolds those who have been colonized for their ingratitude. Kipling was not always such a jingoist as this. In his prose works, he often shows a good deal of knowledge about and appreciation for Indian culture, for instance. In this particular poem, however, his brilliant eloquence and memorable phrase-building are placed at the service of a deeply racist imperial vision. Colonized people are demonized and infantilized in the same line, while their oppressors are hailed as heroes. It is no wonder that this is now Kipling's most frequently condemned poem.