The Black Man's Burden

This was an assignment for my Modern World History class two years ago when I was a sophomore. We had to write a rebuttal poem to Rudyard Kipling's famous "The White Man's Burden," so I wrote about the black man's burdens in those times. Enjoy!

See the black man's burden

Ye gain protection of your children

Only to lose land and ye crops

Ye work like dogs endlessly

While watching the white man relax

The white man forces ye into slavery

And ye may never be free and

Ye children will never know freedom

See the black man's burden

View the terror within ye and deny it

For the white man need ye

Ye will see freedom and will chase it

Yet ye will never catch it

The fight for peace will be a battle lost

Ye must also know that the goals ye make

Will fade into nothingness because of the white man

See the black man's burden

Ye will work only for the white man

The white man sees his own burdens, yet they don't exist

All their "burdens" deal with ye as their slave

Yet, ye must remember one thing:

Whatever the white man's gain is

A lost of ye and is

The Black Man's burden