white man's burden

one of the most egregious expressions in the language (from Rudyard Kipling's 1899 poem of the same name), this refers to the alleged duty of white peoples to manage the affairs of "less developed" nonwhite peoples. It was the inescapable duty of white conquerors, he wrote, to rule over their "new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child." This concept served to justify immeasurable horror and injustice, and lingering colonial/domineering/protectionistic/patriarchal attitudes stemming from this phrase still color much Western thought.