“The poem 'The White Man's Burden' has been widely misread. In effect, critics have stopped, affronted, at the first stanza: "Your new-caught, sullen peoples, / Half-devil and half child." It is the imputation of childishness that lodges in the throat—and, alas, in the brain. Has anyone, I wonder, read to the end of the poem and understood it? The reward for taking up the White Man's Burden is stated in the last line: "The judgment of your peers!" Who are those 'peers,' those equals? Since the poem is addressed to the USA, you might think that "peers" refers to British imperialists. But you would be wrong. The "peers" in question are the "new-caught, sullen peoples"—raised to equality. As the previous three stanzas make clear.

'Take up the White Man's burden–

And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,

The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light: —
"Why brought ye us from bondage,

"Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden–

Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom

To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,

By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples

Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden–

Have done with childish days–
The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers!'

“In this account, the imperialist aim, which mustn't be rushed, is eventual independence: 'Nor call too loud on Freedom / To cloak your weariness.' In other words, grant freedom at the proper juncture, when the moment is ripe—and not because fatigue makes you want to rest. Kipling's penultimate stanza ends explicitly with the judgment of the colonised on the colonisers: 'The silent, sullen peoples / Shall weigh your Gods and you.' But Kipling waits until the last line of the poem to spring his surprise—a surprise marked by an exclamation mark. There he makes it clear that, in the end, the judgment of the colonised on the colonisers will be the judgment of equals, 'the judgment of your peers.' The aim, then, is not subjection and exploitation in perpetuity, but 'Freedom' with a capital 'F' and elevation to equality.”[5]

If correct, Raine's interpretation would be one refutation of Said's critique of Kipling. Under this interpretation there is no permanent racial divide, nor a permanent empire.