This, by Kipling, recently floored me:

Take up the White Man’s burden–

Ye dare not stoop to less–

Nor call too loud on Freedom

To cloak your weariness;

By all ye cry or whisper,

By all ye leave or do,

The silent, sullen peoples

Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Christopher Frizzelle was The Stranger's print editor, and first joined the staff in 2003. He was the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2016, and edited the story by Eli Sanders that won a 2012 Pulitzer...

11 replies on “Apropos of Midnight”

  1. also, a little walt whitman:

    ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884
    Walt Whitman

    If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,

    ‘Twould not be you, Niagara – nor you, ye limitless prairies – nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,

    Nor you, Yosemite – nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,

    Nor Oregon’s white cones – nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes – nor Mississippi’s stream:

    This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name – the still small voice vibrating -America’s choosing day,

    (The heart of it not in the chosen – the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)

    The stretch of North and South arous’d – sea-board and inland – Texas to Maine – the Prairie States – Vermont, Virginia, California,

    The final ballot-shower from East to West – the paradox and conflict,

    The countless snow-flakes falling – (a swordless conflict,

    Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s): the peaceful choice of all,

    Or good or ill humanity – welcoming the darker odds, the dross:

    – Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify – while the heart pants, life glows:

    These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,

    Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.

  2. Of course Kipling was a racist. If you read the The Jungle Book, it’s rife with racist themes and ideas (King Louie, of the Apes, is supposed to demonstrate what happens when people of color are in charge of themselves). Some of his books are still very good (taken in the same way that “n*gger” is in Mark Twain- offensive, perhaps, to us, but accurate in context.), but the guy was definitely all about imperialism.

  3. excerpt from “On the Pulse of Morning” by Maya Angelou,
    Presidential inauguration, January 1993

    Each of you a bordered country,
    Delicate and strangely made proud,
    Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

    Your armed struggles for profit
    Have left collars of waste upon
    My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

    Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
    If you will study war no more. Come,

    Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
    The Creator gave to me when I and the
    Tree and the stone were one.

    Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
    Brow and when you yet knew you still
    Knew nothing.

    The River sings and sings on.

    There is a true yearning to respond to
    The singing River and the wise Rock.

    So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
    The African and Native American, the Sioux,
    The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
    The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
    The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
    The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
    They hear. They all hear
    The speaking of the Tree.

    Today, the first and last of every Tree
    Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

    Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River

  7. Ditto to number 4. Yes, Kipling was most certainly a racist and an imperialist – but King Louie was a Disney creation and NOT in Kipling’s book.

  9. I wanna be a man, mancub
    And stroll right into town
    And be just like the other men,
    I’m tired of monkeying around

    So oo-be-doo
    I wannabe just like you
    I wanna walk like you,
    Talk like you,
    Too-oo-oo.
    You see-ee-ee,
    An ape like me-ee-ee,
    Can learn to be human too!

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