Tom Brady Under Fire for Sharing ‘Racist’ Poem By Rudyard Kipling

Tom Brady can’t catch a break from liberal nasties.

His latest crime? Posting Rudyard Kipling’s 1898 poem If on Instagram and Twitter following his fifth Super Bowl win for the New England Patriots.

If is a classic work from the Jungle Book author that was voted Best British Poem of all time a couple of decades ago. It’s most oft-cited lines—like “If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you” and “If you can meet with triumph and disaster/ And treat those two imposters just the same”—have become odes to self-confidence and humility in the context of sporting contests.

The poem has been featured in Apocalypse Now, adapted into a song by Joni Mitchell, read out on the BBC to conclude their 1998 World Cup soccer coverage, and used by the Boston Red Sox for a video tribute last year to retiring player David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz.

But when Brady, who has already been savaged for his ties to Trump and labeled a white supremacist, posts If—it’s a big deal. Why? Because Kipling was a proud colonialist, who coined the phrase “white man’s burden” and is a marked man in the eyes of social justice warriors suffering from an acute case of what historian William Manchester referred to as “generational narcissism.”

Brady+ Trump+ Kipling= Internet uproar.

Yahoo writer Daniel Roberts tried to whip up a storm tweeting: “Considering all the vitriol over Brady’s friendship w/ Trump, mayyybe Rudyard Kipling (“The White Man’s Burden) not the best poet to quote.”

“Tom Brady quoting a Rudyard Kipling poem on Facebook after repeatedly being called a white supremacist is…not great,” said another skeptic. “Do you think Tom Brady realizes the irony of quoting a Kipling poem to celebrate a super bowl win? Especially without even crediting RK,” asked William Streit.

On Instagram most Brady followers loved the poem but hatred still abounded. Fumed “dangirl53”: “Love you Tom, support you 100%, but, the writer of your poem-Rudyard Kipling, is a racist bastard. Do your research. Our country is extremely divided by racial discord. Let’s promote those who are working to bring us together.”

The bigger scandal is that Brady quoted the poem in full without crediting Kipling:

"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!"

A post shared by Tom Brady (@tombrady) on Feb 9, 2017 at 7:17am PST