Harry Hopkins and The White Man’s Burden

“The days of the policy of ‘the white man’s burden’ are over. Vast masses of people simply are not going to tolerate it and for the life of me I can’t see why they should. We have left little in our trail except misery and poverty for the people whom we have exploited.”

Harry Hopkins — 1941

For those who don’t know, Harry Hopkins was to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), what Col. Edwin House was to President Woodrow Wilson — to wit; a chief adviser and some would say a co-President with FDR. Hopkins was so central to the Roosevelt presidency that he actually lived in the White House with his wife from May 1940 to December 1943. Further, the historical evidence points to the fact that Hopkins, at the very least, was a fellow traveler if not a outright Soviet Union partisan and agent.

This quote is fascinating because it is suggestive that one of the central purposes of WW II, was to strip the White Christian of his authority among the Nations. The wisdom of this policy offered by Hopkins can be measured by the results 70 years later. 70 years later demonstrates that the formerly exploited are in far worse condition now then they were during the age of colonialism.

The whole idea that the Christian white man exploited the third world is a narrative that has been created and sustained by the enemy of the Christian white man. That is not to say that there was never injustice done to inhabitants of the colonized world. It is to say when the risk vs. benefit of colonialism is considered the benefit to third worlders was far greater than the risks they took in having the white man taking up their burdens.

The idea that the Christian white man has left little in his trail save misery and poverty was nonsense when Hopkins said this and it is now pure dumbassery when read almost 80 years later. Yet, we still hear people today make this same type of complaint about the evil of the white man.

I’ll start off by saying Western people in general, and white Americans in particular, have little or no concept of corporate evil or they are actively set against the idea. I think it’s very important for me as a white man to say “Look, that’s wrong.”

Tim Keller
Supporting the “White man is evil narrative”

 “White nationalism is a manifestation of an ancient evil that we as Christians, of all people, ought to recognize immediately. White nationalism emerges from what the Bible calls “the way of the flesh.” This is a form of idolatry that exalts one’s own creaturely attributes, making a god out of, for instance, one’s ancestral origins or one’s tribal culture.”  

Russell Moore
Supporting the idea of the White Nationalism is evil

What was controversial when Harry Hopkins spoke it in 1941 has become de rigueur in the pulpits of “conservative” American pulpits across the country. The premise behind all these words is that the white man has “left little in his trail except misery and poverty for the people whom we have exploited.”

Because this narrative has been established the Christian white man has been loaded with false guilt that cannot be atoned for, even if it were true, by the finished work of Jesus Christ, but can only be atoned for by bowing and scraping to leftist minorities (no Biblical minority would ever believe any of this or expect his white Christian brothers to bow and scrape before him), by impoverishing ourselves for the sake of reparations, and by coming underneath the whip hand of the stranger and the alien in our own homeland.

And if these people are successful then what will happen here is what has happened in South Africa. Illiana Mercer has warned us in her book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot,” but still the Christian white man continues to believe this false narrative that the white man is exploitative leaving nothing but a trail of poverty and misery.

The Christian white man is the best thing that has ever happened to the non-Caucasian world, and that not due to the fact that he does not have a sin nature. The Christian white man has been the best thing that has ever happened to the non-Caucasian world only because of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane