Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama, 1995, Excerpts
Things began to change with the first of the white man’s wars. More guns arrived, along with a white man who called himself district commissioner. We called this man the Oppressor. He imposed a hut tax that had to be paid in the white man’s money. This forced many men for wages. He conscripted outright many of our men into his army to carry provisions and build a road that would allow automobiles to pass. He surrounded himself with Luos who wore clothes like the white man to serve as his agents and tax collectors. We learned that we now had chiefs, men who were not even in the council of elders. All these things were resisted, and many men began to fight. But those who did so were beaten or shot. Those who failed to pay taxes saw their huts burned to the ground. Some families fled farther into the countryside to start new villages. But most people stayed and learned to live with this new situation, although we now all realized that it had been foolish to ignore the white man’s arrival.
During this time, your grandfather worked for the white man.
The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling, First Stanza, 1899
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
