I was about to write a long piece blasting those people who wanted to get all smug about the KONY video. Once I started to read about the backlash, I slowed my roll. I haven't watched the video and don't intend to, but the criticism sounds fair. Invisible Children should be commended for an innovative and effective outreach campaign, but it won't do to simply swap sets of butchers.
Yet my core worries about Andrew Sullivan and the rest of Smug Brigade remains. The quote from Rebecca Rosen in the link is worth a copy-and-paste. "It would be a terrible outcome," Rosen wrote, "if those who initially pushed the video along were discouraged by this experience from further engagement, overlearning the lesson and believing there is no positive way for Americans to engage in the world abroad." I am FB friends with a lot of high school students who shared the KONY link, because I am sure it was the first time any of them had ever thought of the scale of human rights violations in Africa. Their outrage and desire to help is completely sincere.
If any of them are reading this, please don't let anything you hear about Invisible Children compromise that sense of outrage you had while watching the video. The truth might be more complicated than the video portrays, but your urge to want to do something is a beautiful thing.
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