If

July 18, 2018 Longrider General News, General Rants, misanthropy, Political 14

Apparently, Kipling’s “If” is offensive.

Students’ union representatives have painted over a famous Rudyard Kipling poem at the University of Manchester in a protest against “racist” and “imperialistic” literature.

Kipling’s poem “If” was replaced by the students’ union executive team with “Still I Rise“, by black poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, to better reflect the union’s values.

The union representatives decided to immediately remove Kipling’s words – which had been painted on a wall by a hired resident artist – from the students’ union building at the University of Manchester.

Here we go again, the offendatrons believe they have the right to tell others what they should think. As for their “values” they can stick ’em where the sun don’t shine.

So, here it is:

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
And to any students who are offended, go fuck yourselves and get over it.

14 Comments

  2. Kipling almost certainly had a better understanding of the human condition better than most. He clearly loved India and the Indians. They probably object to Kipling’s “The White Man’s burden”

    Tough. These lot are fit to hold his notepad

    • Beyond some carefully-selected quotes in anti-colonial polemics, I doubt any of those involved have actually read any of Kipling’s work – it’s common knowledge in their circles that he was a racist, so how could they acquire the texts without appearing to endorse the same values (let alone be seen reading them)?

      Still, we’ve seen often enough recently that research or background knowledge is optional when it comes to expressing strong opinions; it’s what you feel that counts:
      “speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.” (Oprah Winfrey – my bold)

  3. I can see how the truly obsessed could claim that the poem is sexist as it uses exclusively male language, that is the way such people think. If is much loved by Ironman champion Chrissy Wellington who used it to inspire her to greatness. She didn’t find it a problem. I wonder how many of these SU tossers will become world champion of anything?

  4. The difference is that Kipling wrote great poetry and splendid stories. How is “…you’re a better man than I am, Gungadin!” racist and imperialistic? On the other hand Angelou’s poem isn’t that great in comparison to IF but I do understand her sentiment.

  5. The man who wrote “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din” was racist?

    Really?

  6. Needs to be an arrest of that girl and incarceration, to teach these snowflakes that actions have consequences.

  7. If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

    From the author’s pen and most apposite in the circumstances…

  9. Long, long ago, I was a student at Machester.
    Then, as now, most students ( both sexes ) were interesed in three things only:
    Cheap BEER, SEX & hopefully getting a decent degree … I suspect that is inchanged.
    Then there were the political nutters – the quasi-fascists & the supposed-marxists, with almost no-one in between – that also appears unchanged
    [ In those days there was “FLOSY”- Google for it – that turned out well, didn’t it? ]

    So the best thing to do is to tell these idots to go & play , preferably with themselves ….

    Meantime: WHo was Kipling’s best-loved & most engaging character?
    MOWGLI – an ordinary Indian Villager’s child – & Kipling was a racist – you couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?

    • Uni mid 80s, the few lefties were anti-Thatcher, pro Mandela

      None on my BSc, all of us wanted to Graduate and obtain a well paid job.

      SU & beer was weekends only by Y1T3

      Mowgli & Disney Jungle book – wonderful

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