Rudyard Kipling's If: Manchester University students scrub poem off wall over 'racism'

[CruzNichaphor]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/worl...f-wall-over-racism/ar-AAAjR9O?ocid=spartanntp

This is starting to really break my heart.

The article even seems to refuse to politicize the story too (pretty rare thing in journalism) - I'm guessing because even the people who know this **** is backwards and going against some of the best aspects of our society and culture are starting to repress their opinions due to fear that they'll simply branded "racists" and thus, shunned from society - as the West is the only culture that actually does this, and rightfully so; but this is a total abuse of this decent characteristic of our society.

It's like some kind of modern day McCarthyism all over again - simply call someone a commie enough times, loud enough and to enough people and they'll disappear.

This is ****ing terrifying stuff.

 

[CruzNichaphor]

Oh calm down snowflake. They scrubbed the poem from a wall, not from history. This is not something to be afraid of, They just changed poems.

The idea of our culture strangling itself with PC overreach is absolutely something to be afraid of.

We shun racists in our culture to the point that they are no longer a viable part of it; this is a good thing in my opinion, but to recklessly throw the term around at people and ideas is dangerous at best and damaging at worst.

What exactly is so offensively racist about Kipling's poem that requires to be scrubbed?

 

[Nakosis]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/worl...f-wall-over-racism/ar-AAAjR9O?ocid=spartanntp

This is starting to really break my heart.

The article even seems to refuse to politicize the story too (pretty rare thing in journalism) - I'm guessing because even the people who know this **** is backwards and going against some of the best aspects of our society and culture are starting to repress their opinions due to fear that they'll simply branded "racists" and thus, shunned from society - as the West is the only culture that actually does this, and rightfully so; but this is a total abuse of this decent characteristic of our society.

It's like some kind of modern day McCarthyism all over again - simply call someone a commie enough times, loud enough and to enough people and they'll disappear.

This is ****ing terrifying stuff.

Don't worry, 50-100 years from now, someone will probably be removing their poems for some ideological reason.

 

[Revoltingest]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/worl...f-wall-over-racism/ar-AAAjR9O?ocid=spartanntp

This is starting to really break my heart.

The article even seems to refuse to politicize the story too (pretty rare thing in journalism) - I'm guessing because even the people who know this **** is backwards and going against some of the best aspects of our society and culture are starting to repress their opinions due to fear that they'll simply branded "racists" and thus, shunned from society - as the West is the only culture that actually does this, and rightfully so; but this is a total abuse of this decent characteristic of our society.

It's like some kind of modern day McCarthyism all over again - simply call someone a commie enough times, loud enough and to enough people and they'll disappear.

This is ****ing terrifying stuff.

It's just Taliban Lite.

 

[Revoltingest]

Don't worry, 50-100 years from now, someone will probably be removing their poems for some ideological reason.

I'm sure that some day, Martin Luther King will be reviled as a bigoted lout.
It could be for something we currently see as innocuous, eg, eating a
burger made from a butchered cow.

 

[Quagmire]

This bothered me:

" ‘The White Man’s Burden’, and a plethora of other work that sought to legitimate the British Empire’s presence in India and de-humanise people of colour" [emphasis mine]

This person obviously has no understanding (or wish to) of the time, place, and atmosphere Kipling was living in. To call his views out-of-date . . .Ok. But to try and paint him as an intentional propagandist? Uh-uh. That's really just ignorant.

"OhMyGod!!! People living a hundred years ago under radically different circumstances in an era with a completely different set of mores and social perspectives expressed themselves differently than I do? Well, I'll have you know that if I were living in that time and place not only would I view race as an artificial social construct, all people as equals, and colonialism and imperialism in all it's forms as a great evil, but I would already be recycling and spending most of my time sitting on my front porch patiently waiting for solar panels and hybrid cars to be invented".

The fact of the matter is, for almost the entirety of the modern era, if you lived on any continent besides Europe you could expect your lands to be claimed and colonized by one of the major European world powers. It's just the way things were at the time. And if you were anything other than white European, you could expect to be oppressed, abused, and exploited to varying degrees depending in large part on which European power you were living under.

Indigenous people living under British rule could generally expect much better treatment than those living under French, Spanish, Belgian, or Prussian (German) rule. Most of this was undoubtedly due to the attitude as expressed in Kipling's poem, ie., the typically paternal attitude the British took with the inhabitants of their colonies, as opposed to the the master/slave relationship most if not all of the other major powers imposed on their subjugated peoples.

We can read Kipling's The White Man's Burden today and judge it in accordance with our 21st century sensibilities (and weren't we clever to have chosen this time to be born into?) and call it condescending and racist --- because it is ---or take it down from a wall in public view because it's inappropriate within the context of our own time, but unless someone's willing to read it and judge it within the context of it's own time and give a nod to the fact that for it's time it was an expression of a comparatively benevolent if not enlightened attitude, they're really just indulging in a lot of un-deserved and self-congratulatory smugness, like the nitwit in the article.

 

[Stevicus]

This bothered me:

" ‘The White Man’s Burden’, and a plethora of other work that sought to legitimate the British Empire’s presence in India and de-humanise people of colour" [emphasis mine]

This person obviously has no understanding (or wish to) of the time, place, and atmosphere Kipling was living in. To call his views out-of-date . . .Ok. But to try and paint him as an intentional propagandist? Uh-uh. That's really just ignorant.

"OhMyGod!!! People living a hundred years ago under radically different circumstances in an era with a completely different set of mores and social perspectives expressed themselves differently than I do? Well, I'll have you know that if I were living in that time and place not only would I view race as an artificial social construct, all people as equals, and colonialism and imperialism in all it's forms as a great evil, but I would already be recycling and spending most of my time sitting on my front porch patiently waiting for solar panels and hybrid cars to be invented".

The fact of the matter is, for almost the entirety of the modern era, if you lived on any continent besides Europe you could expect your lands to be claimed and colonized by one of the major European world powers. It's just the way things were at the time. And if you were anything other than white European, you could expect to be oppressed, abused, and exploited to varying degrees depending in large part on which European power you were living under.

Indigenous people living under British rule could generally expect much better treatment than those living under French, Spanish, Belgian, or Prussian (German) rule. Most of this was undoubtedly due to the attitude as expressed in Kipling's poem, ie., the typically paternal attitude the British took with the inhabitants of their colonies, as opposed to the the master/slave relationship most if not all of the other major powers imposed on their subjugated peoples.

We can read Kipling's The White Man's Burden today and judge it in accordance with our 21st century sensibilities (and weren't we clever to have chosen this time to be born into?) and call it condescending and racist --- because it is ---or take it down from a wall in public view because it's inappropriate within the context of our own time, but unless someone's willing to read it and judge it within the context of it's own time and give a nod to the fact that for it's time it was an expression of a comparatively benevolent if not enlightened attitude, they're really just indulging in a lot of un-deserved and self-congratulatory smugness, like the nitwit in the article.

Political correctness is today's equivalent of "The White Man's Burden."

 

[siti]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/worl...f-wall-over-racism/ar-AAAjR9O?ocid=spartanntp

This is starting to really break my heart.

The article even seems to refuse to politicize the story too (pretty rare thing in journalism) - I'm guessing because even the people who know this **** is backwards and going against some of the best aspects of our society and culture are starting to repress their opinions due to fear that they'll simply branded "racists" and thus, shunned from society - as the West is the only culture that actually does this, and rightfully so; but this is a total abuse of this decent characteristic of our society.

It's like some kind of modern day McCarthyism all over again - simply call someone a commie enough times, loud enough and to enough people and they'll disappear.

This is ****ing terrifying stuff.

Kipling is perceived as a symbol of British imperialism and has been for a very long time. Quite a bit of his writing (but not this poem) is uncomfortably bigoted to read nowadays and some is overtly racist (The White Man's Burden http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_burden.htm for example) - I think the ignorance in this case was on the part of whoever decided to put a Kipling poem on the wall of the Student's Union building - at Manchester of all places - you might as well put up a portrait of Cecil Rhodes or Queen Victoria.

Anyway, I think Maya Angelou's poem is a suitable and less anachronistic replacement. In a way, the two poems convey a similar call to perseverance and resilience in the face of unfair opposition and adversity - they are both motivational poems - one that was suitable for Victorian age "manhood" and the other for a more gender- and ethnically-inclusive era.

Overall though, I reckon its OK for the students to decide which poem they have on their wall.

 

[siti]

‘The White Man’s Burden’, and a plethora of other work that sought to legitimate the British Empire’s presence in India and de-humanise people of colour" [emphasis mine]

This person obviously has no understanding (or wish to) of the time, place, and atmosphere Kipling was living in. To call his views out-of-date . . .Ok. But to try and paint him as an intentional propagandist? Uh-uh. That's really just ignorant.

Sorry but this is just wrong. Kipling certainly was an intentional propagandist - and especially so in the case of The White Man's Burden, a poem that was first written to honor Queen Victoria as Empress and then re-written and published in the American press with the express purpose of encouraging America to colonize the Philippines. Here's the first stanza:

TAKE up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind 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.
​

How is that not racist and imperialist? "Half devil and half child" indeed! That was inappropriately 'racist' even when it was written and people said so. And I know that's not the poem they put up - but imagine how any of the students "of colour" who were actually familiar with Kipling would respond to seeing his work honored in their own space?

 

[Quagmire]

Sorry but this is just wrong. Kipling certainly was an intentional propagandist - and especially so in the case of The White Man's Burden, a poem that was first written to honor Queen Victoria as Empress

Which doesn't make him a propagandist.

and then re-written and published in the American press with the express purpose of encouraging America to colonize the Philippines.

Re-written and published by whom? If he re-wrote it and submitted it for publication with that purpose, then OK I was wrong: he was a propagandist.

If it's just a matter of someone else using his work for propaganda, different story.

Here's the first stanza:

TAKE up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind 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.
​

How is that not racist and imperialist?

I don't believe anyone said it wasn't.

"Half devil and half child" indeed! And I know that's not the poem they put up - but imagine how any of the students "of colour" who were actually familiar with Kipling would respond to seeing his work honored in their own space?

Not sure what point you're trying to make with that.

 

[siti]

If he re-wrote it and submitted it for publication with that purpose, then OK I was wrong: he was a propagandist.

He re-wrote it and published it for that purpose.

 

[Quagmire]

He re-wrote it and published it for that purpose.

Yeah, I just wikied it. In fact, the original title of the poem was: The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands

OK. looks like I was wrong about his intentions then. Thought I knew more about him than I did.

I'm standing by what I said about British imperialists compared to pretty much everyone else in the business though.

 

[siti]

I'm standing by what I said about British imperialists compared to pretty much everyone else in the business though.

British rule was a bit more avuncular perhaps than some of the more brutal European empires - but Kipling was writing at the end of the "age of empires" - there was a fair bit of opposition to his kind of thinking even then. Most of the ordinary home-based subjects of the Empire knew almost nothing of the world Kipling was writing about, they were far too busy digging coal, building ships and producing weapons and clothes for pitiful wages to support the almost continuous military campaigns required to defend an Empire even the Empress hadn't visited half of (it was so big). You can argue that it is just how the world was - and to some extent that's true - but according to a parody of Kipling's poem by Howard S. Taylor, also published in 1899, Empire was not so much "the white man's burden" as it was the "the Poor Man's Burden":

THE POOR MAN'S BURDEN

(After Kipling.)
Pile up the poor man's burden—
The weight of foreign wars;
Go shrewdly yoke together
Great Mercury and Mars,
And march with them to conquest,
As once did ancient Rome,
With vigor on her borders
And slow decay at home!

Pile up the poor man's burden—
Accept Great Britain's plan;
She does all things for commerce—
Scarce anything for man.
Far off among the pagans
She seeks an open door,
While Pity cries in London,
"God help the British poor!**

Pile up the poor man's burden—
His sons Will hear our call—
Will feed the jungle fever,
And stop the Mauser ball;
Will fall, far off, unnoted,
For spoils they may not share,
And spill their blood to water
A laurel here and there!

Pile up the poor man's burden -
Keep in the old, old track!
Let Glory ride, as ever,
Upon the toiler's back.
Lay tax on tax upon him,
Devised with subtle skill;
Call forth his sons to slaughter,
And let him pay the bill!

Pile up the poor man's burden
The lords of trade, at least,
May drink, like King Belshazzar,
In comfort at the feast;
May boast, as did the monarch
Within his palace hall
While God wrote out his sentence
In fire upon the wall!
—HOWARD S. TAYLOR.

That might have been a more fitting poem to have on a wall in Manchester - in a city that was the heartland of the industrial revolution, in a building that is just a stones throw from where Friederich Engels and Karl Marx used to sit down to compare notes - and where my own ancestors sacrificed their health in squalor in support of the Empire whilst Kipling wrote disparagingly about "savages" abroad. Kipling should be remembered - as a writer - but as a social commentator, his view of Empire was massively skewed by privilege and it was not a view that was witnessed by many, and enjoyed by even less.

 

[TheBannerofHomuraAkemi]

The idea of our culture strangling itself with PC overreach is absolutely something to be afraid of.

We shun racists in our culture to the point that they are no longer a viable part of it; this is a good thing in my opinion, but to recklessly throw the term around at people and ideas is dangerous at best and damaging at worst.

What exactly is so offensively racist about Kipling's poem that requires to be scrubbed?

When and how is racism a viable part of our culture?

 

[CruzNichaphor]

When and how is racism a viable part of our culture?

Re-read what I wrote; I said it was not a viable part of our culture due to the way it is approached.

 

[Gallowglass]

If specifically was addressed to Jack. However, Kipling was a pretty horrible person, at least with regards to imperialism. Gunga Din is really bad. I can understand not wanting to look at his poetry every day. If is a good poem, and I wouldn't have participated, but it should be there choice what poet they want on the wall.

I mean there is some argument about how much If is actually influenced from Bhagvad Gita, basically reprocessing Hindu philosophy to make it palatable for his son.

"Fixed in Yoga, do thy work, O Arjun, abondoning attachment, with an even mind in success and failure, for evenness of mind is called Yoga".

"He whose mind is untroubled in the midst of sorrows and is free from eager desire amid pleasures, he from whom pasion, fear, and rage have passed away-he is called sage of settled intelligence".

"But a man of disciplined mind, who moves among the objects of sense, with the senses under control and free from attachment and aversion - he attains purity of spirit".

"He who is equal minded among friends, companions and foes, among those who are neutral and impartial, among those who are hateful and related, among saints and sinners -- he excels".

"He who abandons all desires and acts free from longing, without any sense of mineness or egotims - he attains to peace".

"Fearlessness, purity of mind, steadfastness in knowledge and concentration, charity, self control and sacrifice, austerity and uprightness....... compassion to living beings, modesty...... freedom from malice and excessive pride -- these, O Arjun are the endowments of him who is born with the divine nature".

 

[Altfish]

I work less than a mile away from where it happened.
I have a lot of sympathy for the students; the Union is their place, the Rudyard Kipling poem was put up without consultation; people knew he is a controversial figure. In a multi-cultural university it was a dumb thing to erect.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

The idea of our culture strangling itself with PC overreach is absolutely something to be afraid of.

We shun racists in our culture to the point that they are no longer a viable part of it; this is a good thing in my opinion, but to recklessly throw the term around at people and ideas is dangerous at best and damaging at worst.

What exactly is so offensively racist about Kipling's poem that requires to be scrubbed?

It wasn't because of this poem, it was because Kipling himself was undeniably racist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden

Furthermore, the poem was put up on the wall of the student's union without first asking the students. The students decided that they didn't want a poem written by a known an notorious racist on the wall of their union building and elected to replace the poem with an anti-opression poem written by Maya Angelou:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ard-kipling-manchester-university-if-14927656

From the article:
A spokesman for the University of Manchester Students’ Union said: “Student leadership is absolutely paramount in the development of The University of Manchester Students’ Union. Without it, we can’t uphold our principles of inclusivity, fairness and empowerment.
“We understand that we made a mistake in our approach to a recent piece of artwork by failing to garner student opinion at the start of a new project. We accept that the result was inappropriate and for that we apologise.
"We understand why our Exec Team took the action they deemed appropriate at the time to right a wrong inside their Union.
“It highlighted the need to adjust our processes and control mechanisms to guarantee that student voices are heard and considered properly so that every outcome is representative of our membership.
“We’re working closely with the Union’s Elected Officers to learn all we can from this situation and are looking forward to introducing powerful, relevant and meaningful art installations across the Students’ Union building over the coming months. The painting of Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’ is a brilliant start to that initiative.”

The poem hasn't been erased from history, no culture has been damaged. A student body decided they didn't want the work of a particular poet on the wall of a building designed to be exclusively run by them and elected to change it.

Please don't make this out to be some kind of vast, cultural crusade. It's a change of wallpaper.