It would be futile to try to recognize or refute any of the poem's appearances of bigotry against non-white people because it is so common, ingrained, and over-the-top.However, it's worth noting how Kipling's bigotry blinded him to the truth of white imperialists—and, one may argue, to the white race—that "The White Man's Burden" so reveres. There is no truthful experience of colonization or imperialism that can characterize European or American imperialism's motivations or consequences as being inspired by selfless benevolence or having solely positive effects.From the devastation and enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Americas to the slave trade that developed out of European colonialism in Africa, to the uniquely rapacious and corrupt activities of the Belgian Congo, to the profit, strength, and national pride that Britain gained from its empire, on which it gloatingly exulted "the sun never set," white imperialism was never solely motivated by self-interest.
