Kony2012: Both Sides Of The Support

Yesterday I reposted this video about Kony2012, I facebooked it to my friends, and just as I expected the next day I found my homepage flooded with people shitting all over the project. Stop sending me Kony2012 bullshit! The organization is shady! It’s stupid! Don’t support it! You are all stupid in your blind following of any cause. I knew it was going to happen, and my friends responded right on cue. As usual, I have a response to their criticisms.

 I know full well that there are people that don’t research their causes and just give money to any “charity” in order to appease their guilt. What are you talking about? I gave 5 bucks to Oxfam last month. Im totally helping, now leave me alone Jersey Shore is on. However, for every person that blindly supports a cause without researching it, there are two who blindly finds the existence of a single article criticizing said cause and uses it as an excuse to dismiss it from their mind and justify their apathy, no more research necessary. Here, I wanted to look in to both sides of the story.

For the criticism, here’s an article that I find makes some valid and well researched points. This one is far more snide and dismissive in its tone, but well sourced so I included it. My response to both is this: the video is about raising awareness, not an open call for donations to Invisible Children. Of course many seeing the video will be inspired to do just that, but Kony2012 is a project with a different goal.

I don’t care if IC is shady, because this is about spreading awareness. If IC is shady great, let’s talk about that, this campaign will do more to expose that than not participating ever would because this is thrusting them right in to the limelight. Welcome to the age of communication, information and ideas. If they suck, someone better will take their place, or they will have to restructure and rebuild in order to survive. 

Status updates like “don’t support Kony2012” is an oxymoron. When you post and repost links criticizing IC and about “not supporting Kony2012”, you ARE supporting Kony 2012, youre bringing him into the public forum, you’re discussing him, you’re researching him and making him one of the most famous names in the world. That is exactly what this project has set out to do. 

Here is TYT discussing these aspects too

So now you may ask, well what does me knowing about him change? In this day and age, spreading the word, talking about something and demonstrating that you care about something is the only way to get the attention of people who actually do have the power to make changes. Also, if there are in fact charities that are exploiting the heart strings that are attached to the purse strings, it shines a bright light on these problems and forces them , under criticism, to clean up their act or crumble under scrutiny. 

This is what I am throwing my support behind. Not the charity responsible, not the Ugandan government, but the conversation. The research. The exchange of ideas. The taking of action against this horrible man. That is what Kony2012 is about, and I fully support it.

And if you are talking about it, even to criticize IC, so are you.