Too Many Burdens

While studying imperialism and world history, one term that has always seemed to stick with me was the term, “White Man’s Burden.” Not because I have some bone to pick with Britain colonizing my home country of Nigeria back in the 19th century, but I’ve always found this term fascinating because of the reasoning behind it. Essentially, a lot of Europeans felt it was their duty to colonize and “civilize” the “beasts” of the foreign countries in Africa and South America. The word, “civilize” meaning tame, destruction of religion, loss of national identity, genocide, forcing the destruction of local religions and languages, whatever you take the word civilize to mean. In the words of Joseph Heller (Catch 22), the White Man’s burden was just an act of “Protective Reasoning” to why it was ok to exploit the smaller countries that Europeans were taking over. Though this did happen back in the 19th century, and most of colonies have now gotten their independence, have all these burdens finally been taken care of, has the whole world been civilized?
For most teens that keep up with modern day pop culture, the answer to this question would be no. Of late, its all the rage to get pregnant now, whether it is to sky rocket your popularity or as a publicity stunt to create buzz for your new movie. But some stars don’t want to get pregnant and deal with the weight, soreness, and bloating that a baby brings, so they’ve resorted to adoption outside of the United States. The most famous case being Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt who now have 6 kids, of which only 3 are biological children. What I find very interesting is that while parents who adopt children do it because of some complication that prevents them from being able to have kid themselves, or a single parent who wants children but does not have a significant other to do so with, Angelina and Brad are fully capable of having children, proof being the two twins she popped out last year. Why can’t parents who aren’t celebrities get babies in the U.S half as fast as celebrities outside of the U.S? Why do celebrities feel the need to adopt if they don’t need to? To many, this feels like a modern day white man’s burden-type of ordeal, but at the same time, a little more positive then our ancestors. Though it seems that Angelina and other celebrities feel that it’s their right to do the world a favor and adopt every foreign child possible, in the end they are giving these children a better life overall. Though this is the white man’s burden all over again, they are actually doing themselves some good, and for once, I think I’m going to have to agree with Jolie.