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Essay of the White Man's Burden

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Essay of “The White Man’s Burden” (1980), Jan Needle.

This is a short story by Jan Needle. We follow the teenager Tony Robertson, who really wants to be friends with immigrants and thinks very positive of the multi-cultural society. It is pretty ironic that although his amiable behavior, two Paki-stanis eventually end up beating him up.

Tony is liberal, he thinks that everyone should have the same chances, and he doesn’t prejudice anyone.
“He’d brought Tony up to be liberal, to reckon on everybody being equal, having the same rights an so on.” (p. 42, top) “You could get robbed and kicked up by a white gang just as easy as a black” (p. 43 top)
Tony is truly clearly thinking same about all ethnics group in the multicultural society. He is definitely setting a better example than some of the other boys at his school by being extremely tolerant.

Tony has a very different attitude on immigrants than his father.
This is showed in several of arguments and rows.
“Every time they talked about something happening in the paper, even a strike by some poor starving hospital workers or something, he took the wrong side. It made Tony see red, get absolutely fuming” (p. 42, l. 11).
“But what had gone wrong with Dad? …Defended them against all-comers. Then it had changed” (p. 42, bottom)
These two quotes clearly state how upset Tony is with the way his father has changed to the other side. When Tony is questioning himself, “but what had gone wrong with Dad?”, it is very obvious that in Tony’s head the immigrants should be treated in a different way than what his dad thinks. Therefore it is evident that they are different from each other, when it comes to their attitude on immi-grants and social issues in general.

Tony won’t appear as if he is being a racist or prejudice immigrants, therefore he wants to befriend Mustafa and keeps repeating that he “loves”

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