You might know Rudyard Kipling as the author of The Jungle Book, but the Philippines will probably always remember him as the guy who encouraged the United States to get all imperial with their nation.

Have your parents ever given you the old "We're your parents therefore you have to do what we say"? How about, "We're the ones in charge until you've earned our trust"? Or maybe "You're too young and naïve to make your own decisions"?

And they're your parents. They're the weirdoes who get misty-eyed when you don't want to watch Die Hard with them on Christmas afternoon.

Imagine what it's like when someone—especially a when a prolific and popular author like Rudyard Kipling—takes that logic against a nation. That's not annoying. That's infuriating.

This poem told the U.S. that they needed to start taking up "the White Man's Burden" by looking over all affairs of the island nation and to judge them as inferiors. And if they start complaining, just remember that they're like a bunch of children and don't know how to appreciate all the work you're doing.

But the Filipinos weren't children, of course. The poem was racist, patriarchal, and a total jerk move. But it did work. The U.S. colonized the Philippines.

Between Mark Twain's darkly sinister political writing, L. Frank Baum's hidden political allegories, and now Rudyard Kipling's terribly racist poems you probably think we're trying to kill all of your childhood literary heroes. But that's what historical analysis is all about, y'all.