White Man's Burden: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Is this one of those movies where the rich, benevolent white family teaches the black kid stuff like how to use a fork?"''|'''Internet commenter''' about ''[[The Blind Side]]''}}
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This trope is about a plot where an ordinary white person meets an underprivileged minority character, takes pity on the other character's plight, then [[The Messiah|selflessly volunteers]] to become a tutor, mentor, or caretaker to make things better.
This is a sister trope to [[Magical Negro]], but is not a direct inversion of it. While a [[Magical Negro]] is depicted as a supporting character to the protagonist, the rescuer ''is'' the protagonist in a
Compare and contrast with [[Mighty Whitey]], where a white person joins a foreign culture and soon becomes the most proficient member in it. The main difference is that [[Mighty Whitey]] characters ''join'' the non-white culture, while
Obviously the reaction to this trope can be just as problematic as the application of the trope itself: if white characters don't help poor and disadvantaged black people, they're seen as uncaring and selfish; if white characters ''do'' help poor and disadvantaged black people, they're being condescending and self-centered. This duality can sometimes happen even within the same movie.
This trope has nothing to do with the 1995 film ''[[White Man's Burden (film)|White Man's Burden]]''.
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* ''The Substitute'' is an action movie take on the "white teacher challenges the inner-city kids." He's actually a mercenary who's investigating the attack on his teacher girlfriend, but along the way he manages to knock some sense into his class and helps take down the black principal's drug ring.
* ''The Principal'' has Jim Belushi taking on the gangs to clean up an inner-city high school.
* Done with a variation in ''[[Glory Road (film)|Glory Road]]''
* ''[[Gran Torino]]'' features Clint Eastwood's character as a bigoted racist who slowly gains compassion for the Hmongs moving into his neighborhood, then he starts taking Thao under his wing and eventually saves him from the local gang.
* ''[[The Help]]'', based on a novel, features Skeeter helping black maids get recognition for their hard work.
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* The [[Trope Namer]] is the 1899 poem [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kipling.html "The White Man's Burden"] by [[Rudyard Kipling]], the gist of which is that it's the responsibility of white Western nations to colonize the rest of the world and rule over it until it fully "develops", i.e. assimilates. The poem actually anticipates the colonized cultures' lack of gratitude for this "service", but portrays it as the cost of doing the right thing. He also states that white cultures have become more advanced by luck, rather than racial superiority. Some critics interpet it as a [[Stealth Parody]], but overall it's a highly controversial poem.
** Kipling was quite explicitly telling Americans, "It's your turn now, and this is what you're letting yourselves in for. And ''we too'' will be watching and criticizing you!"
**While the term "White" is unfortunate (it could on any given occasion be a brown or black man's burden), the concept is less pernicious then it sounds. One possible interpretation of the poem is "You break it you bought it". Britain and the United States had already made the conquests that gave them the new territory they ruled over whatever moral questions one might have about the process. They had now to deal with running the government as justly and wisely as possibly once they got there.
* ''[[The Soloist]]'' is about a white journalist who finds and befriends a black homeless man, who turns out to be a former musical prodigy before developing schizophrenia.
* [[Robert Sheckley]]'s short story "Human Man's Burden" is a parody of this trope, using robots instead of some non-white ethnicity.
*
** Dobby himself mentions that when Dumbledore hired him he tried to give Dobby the same pay and benefits as an average human working schlub, and Dobby, insisting that he is unusual but not inelfin, talked him down to wages that are just short of slavery.
*** He also mentions that he's now the only one that will clean the Griffindor girls' rooms, because Hermione has been hiding clothing in various places trying to ''trick'' house elves into picking them up and being freed. That's right... on some level Hermione understands that the elves don't want her "help", but she knows better and by God she's going to make them take it.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* Parodied in a [[Mad TV]] sketch called [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVF-nirSq5s "Nice White Lady"], imitating all the stories of nice white teacher ladies who help inner-city kids turn their lives around.
* Lampshaded in the ''[[Frasier]]'' episode "Dr. Mary
* On ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'', when Dick discovered white guilt, he tried to be this to Nina. When Nina asked him if he was going to be the enlightened white man showing her the way, he [[Does Not Understand Sarcasm|missed the sarcasm]] and replied [[Insult Backfire|"You know me so well!"]]
* The premise of ''[[Diff'rent Strokes]]'' is a wealthy white man taking in two black inner city kids. "Now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum..."
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* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode 'Human Nature' the Doctor is turned into a human, and given the memories of 1913 school teacher John Smith. This includes [[Values Dissonance]] for the time period, unfortunately enough for his black companion Martha Jones, who is pretending to be his servant. He takes it as his duty to help this poor black lady; when she starts saying that he's ''not'' human, but an alien, and they're being attacked, his reaction is to teach her that this is "what we call a story". She slaps him for that.
* Like many race-related tropes, this is deconstructed brutally in ''[[The Wire]]''. Roland Pryzbelewski, a cop-turned-teacher and [[The Atoner|Atoner]], tries to invoke this trope with a bright but troubled student named Dukwan, washing his clothes for him and letting him into the school early to use the locker room showers. Eventually, however, Prez is forced to reconcile the fact that, as a teacher in inner-city Baltimore, he can't try to fix every damaged individual in his classes, and by the season finale he regretfully observes Dukwan's descent into addiction.
== Web Original ==
* The ''[[Cracked.com]]'' parody, "[[A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever]]" has [[White Male Lead|Wealthy, Successful Protagonist]] trying to teach a Latino student to believe in himself, being a lawyer for an African-American man, and fighting with the "Native American metaphor" against the "US military metaphor".
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', this is the Fire Nation's official reason for conquering and colonizing the rest of the world: they want to "share their greatness" with the rest of the world. Certainly, Ozai doesn't care about that and just wants to be [[A God Am I|the supreme ruler of everything]], but that was [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Firelord Sozin]]'s reason for beginning the war in the first place. Eventually, {{spoiler|Zuko}} realizes 1) that this "sharing" philosophy is a total
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