This morning I read an article on Facebook posted by a "friend" whom I haven't spoken to since my Junior year in high school. He posted the picture of the IC founders standing with members of the African army holding guns. Best promotional picture? No, in fact it's probably a terrible promotion picture- a mistake. Here's why it infuriates me:
At this point, five days after the Kony 2012 video hit the Internet and went viral, people are looking for ways out of it. Looking for ways to make themselves not responsible for the woes and tragedies of other people. It makes me ill to think that we are looking for ways to relieve our own anxiety about the human race. Yes, those men should have thought twice before taking a photo associating themselves (jokingly) with violence or armed solutions. However, the picture was taken and it hit the Internet. Mind you, this picture was probably taken when things were nothing like they are today. These men had no idea what they would fall into, that part of the article I believe. I don't believe they knew what they were getting into, although their purpose, to shed light on Kony was probably well drawn out.
Mistakes are made- it happens everywhere with everyone, especially with the large mass media projects./people. Let me put it into shallow terms:
Snookie: She's disgusting, and I think even supporters of her know this. She parties, she's a glutton, she's greedy, boisterous, inappropriate, a bad role model, promiscuous, and now, sadly, pregnant. Hundreds of bad pictures have come out of her, yet a lot of the public still supports her show by watching, thus putting millions of dollars in her pocket. There are Snookie haters, yes, but there is also a youth that is more aware of her behaviors on last week's "Jersey Shore" than there are who know about Africa's ravaged, impoverished, and unjustly managed villages and people. Articles like the one read on Facebook fuel that kind of ignorance and seek a scapegoat from what is important: that we help others. It says that "Ic is too late" and that Joseph Kony has "been in hiding since 2006". Maybe he did go into hiding, but the world gave him twenty- six years to do so. That doesn't give back the lives he took, the women he abused, and the childhoods that were ripped from the chests of young African children, kidnapped from their beds.
We have to stop thinking so much about helping others and trying to discourage the mass from doing so. Kony 2012 displayed nothing, but the want to help and bring what is important to light. Why would they harvest our money to fuel their travel and personal expenses while putting themselves in the spotlight of a 36 million person audience? If they wanted a scam, why not do it in a subtle way that would allow them to collect money through phony phone calls, grocery store recruits, and Internet scams? Why would they go to the extremes of making Kony 2012 a mass/ viral phenomenon if all they wanted was the money?
Because, all they want is to help and that takes 0 research to prove. We have the right and the need to research the cause, the ways in which we can help, and the progress of such a project, but I think we lose respect and human compassion when we go on the hunt to find what is "hidden" or what can be used to defame a project such as Invisible Children. It's not too late, we're just finding out about it for the first time and starting to care about it because of what we've been shown. It's okay to admit that we were naive because that's usually how you get the world's attention.
What kind of world are we going to leave behind for future generations? One where worshiping drunk Chileans with fake tans is the norm and helping those in need is a "if-you-wanna"? I say we stop feeding people bullshit and "truths" about a cause that is obviously so pure and philanthropically inspired.
Hold to your opinions, but stop shooting down a good cause. If you don't want to support/help- well, you have that right. However, if you are in favor of a better world and believe that we can do something bigger than ourselves, then please stay strong with the cause and move forward.
-Always moving forward.
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