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
“Orion was looking down at him, without a lot of interest. Orion and his dog. But there was no one else. They’d gone” (p. 50, bottom)
The star constellation Orion is anything but stealthy, it is one of the most clearly visible constellations in the night sky. This represents the way he appears to oth-er, he is this rich kid on the block, illuminated and exposed in the night. Never has he been this vulnerable to gangs, he is a shining in the night with all eyes on him.

Criticizes how the majority of youth in the urban life behaves and treats immi-grants and how separated natives and immigrants are.
“”We been down the Rose Bank,” said Stephens. “Get ourselves a few black scalps. Give ‘em a taste of the silent majority. Welcome to our land, brothers. Have a brick through the windowpane”. (p. 46 bottom)
“He was the only Pakistani in his year, at the grammar school” (p. 44 middle)
This is how the majority of the youth think of Pakistanis, they’re pigs and not to be friends with. There is also only 1 student from Pakistanis at Tony’s year, that is a great example of how separated the society is. “Over to his left, from the Ash-ton Road towards the edge of the snowy moors, was Rose Bank, where the blacks and Pakistanis lived” (p. 42 top). Here it is shown that there is a special area in the city where the minority groups live.

This short story is definitely critic of how segregated the society is and of how prejudice both parts are