The white man's burden
Rang loud and clear
Trumpeted by church and state alike.
Exercise dominion over the colored savages.
Cleanse them of their heathen ways.
Civilize them in Western manners,
And bring wealth and power
Back to your homeland.
And so in search of his holy grail
The white man plundered
The colored world.
He stole the riches of the
Incas, Aztecs, and Native American Indians,
Vietnamese and Asian Indians,
Yoruba, Ashanti, Maasai, and Zulu,
Not just gold and gems
But land, precious ancestral land.
The white man created a world of
Homeless people,
Uprooted from their land,
A key to their sustenance and sense of self.
He forced his faith, the Christian faith,
Upon the conquered peoples,
Belittling the faith of their fathers,
Robbing them of another aspect of
Their sense of self.
Much as he tried to do with his fellow white man,
The Jews, who although not heathen
Were held to be infidels, Christ-killers.
The self-righteousness of the Christian white man
Knew no bounds.
And in the process of plundering and colonizing,
The white man committed genocide
Against the colored man.
In Mexico, Central and South America,
A population of 38 million when the Spanish arrived
Was reduced to 6 million 200 years later.
In North America, a population of 7-12 million
Was reduced to 237,000 by the end of the Indian wars.
In Africa and Asia numbers are not available,
But the slave trade stole 17 million from their
Ancestral African homes and way of life
To toil under the lash of slavery.
Although the majority of deaths were caused by Western disease.
Acts of purposeful violence and population control were common.
The record of United States history
Against Native Americans in this regard
Is clear and transparent.
These lands were not, as the white man likes to say,
Uninhabited and available for settlement.
They were home to millions of people in
Long-established civilizations, with
Vibrant cultures and religions.
The white man will say that
Slavery was abolished, recognizing its evil.
But while it was abolished, not the Civil War
Nor the 13th and14th Amendments,
Nor the Civil Rights laws
Restored the Black man to his
Rightful dignity and respect
As a human being
Because the dominant white culture
Would not accept that;.
Though no longer slave
The black man was held inherently inferior.
As a result, now in the 21st Century
The white man, or better put,
The Christian white man
Has a very different burden.
It is the burden of having committed
Crimes against humanity
For hundreds of years
In the quest for power, dominance, and wealth.
To relieve himself of this
Spiritual and social burden,
The Christian white man must
Atone for his sins,
Both those of today and those of his forebears.
Atone by acknowledging these
Acts of inhumanity and genocide
Through public commissions and hearings.
By changing all history books to
Accurately state the abundance of
Indigenous culture,
It's destruction by the white man,
And the role of even these
Decimated populations and imported slaves,
And their descendants, in the development,
And yes, often even the defense, of
The new nation state.
Atone by adopting an attitude of
Remorse and understanding
For the suffering that his actions
Have caused colored people
Both in the past
And continuing to this day.
Atone, most importantly, by finally offering
The colored man respect and true equality.
The white man's burden is huge,
His responsibility for past evil is vast.
The need for him to atone for past sins
Is self-evident if he wishes to be considered
A human being,
A child of God.
