The Black Man’s Burden
The poem is all about the piling more and more stuff onto the burden the black man is forced to carry. What, precisely, is the symbolic meaning of the term black man’s burden, anyway? What is interesting is the number of answers to that question which one can find spread across the various analysis and criticism of the poem. Some suggest is boils down to pure simplicity itself: racism. Other argue it is a more complex mixture of the consequences of racism and imperialism: submission, guilt, and rage. In between are interpretations identifying the black man’s burden as the everything from oppression to white supremacy. Ultimately, it is probably a great big symbol that covers all these things, but all those things and others can be distilled into one concise definition: the black man’s burden is being a racial minority in a world run by white people.
At Your Door
The first lines of the poem ask an unidentified entity (presumably America or simply white society in general) in a sarcastic tone to keep piling the burdens onto the black man. The he reminds the entity that while they dream of spreading their poison to the black men in Cuba and Hawaii with the allusion “Tis nearest at your door.” The door symbolizes the two sides of America: on the inside is white society while still waiting to be welcomed are the progeny of slaves.
The Red Man
Stanza two expands white privilege which allows them to think they are responsible for civilizing the rest of the world in include the “Red Man.” This terminology springs from the fact that Christopher Columbus in all his show of intellectual supremacy as a white man thought he’d landed in India on his first voyage when, in fact, he actually closer to India back home in Europe. As a result, indigenous tribes would come to be labeled “Red Indians” to distinguish them from the actual Indians who populated India. Thus “Red Man” is a symbol for native Americans, but also in keeping with the sarcastic overall tone of the poem, a sly symbolic slap at the “white man’s burden” of being in charge of a world they can’t even navigate.
Honorable Wars
Stanza Two ends with the phrase “honor’s holy breath” juxtaposed with an allusion to the recent Spanish American War. The breath may symbolize the ironic cry of “Remember the Maine!” as a rallying cry for that imperialist invasion, the exhalation of air caused by the mysterious explosion aboard the Maine which served to justify and rally support for the war or, likely, both.
The Wink
Directly addressing systemic American racism in the third stanza, imagery related to slavery and an explicit mention of Jim Crow laws leads to a metaphor for unspeakable deeds committed in the name of racial hatred, “fiendish midnight deed.” All of these are collectively intensified by the phrase “though winked at the nation” which serves to symbolically indict not only those who commit such openly hostile acts of racial violence, but those who participate in its continuance by viewing it with a wink and nod.
