Question

The excerpt is from an African American poem called “The Black Man’s Burden.”

Pile on the Black Man’s Burden.
'Tis nearest at your door;
Why heed long bleeding Cuba,
or dark Hawaii’s shore?
Hail ye your fearless armies,
Which menace feeble folks
Who fight with clubs and arrows
and brook your rifle’s smoke.
–H.T. Johnson, The Black Man’s Burden, 1899

What point of view does the poem’s author express?

Cuba and Hawaii could benefit most from imperialism.
Imperialist armies are easily repelled by native armies.
Imperialism is more about bullying than heroism.
African Americans were wrong to fight imperialism.

Answer 1

Imperialism is more about bullying than heroism.

“The Black Man’s Burden” is a poem written by African-American clergyman H.T. Johnson and published in April 1899, as a response to Rudyard Kipling's “The White Man’s Burden” published earlier the same year. Kipling's poem was a call to the U.S. to assume colonial control over the Filipino people.

In his response, Johnson is writing about how colonialism is not a 'burden' in the sense of a moral duty the white man has to help the natives, but rather something cruel to do to these people: "menace feeble folk," "brook your rifle's smoke."