Critiques
1. Look at the brief montage of footage (17:26-17:38) where people are out in matching shirts with a banner declaring where they are; not one of them is in a lesser developed country or even in Africa. All of these cities have zones with internet access. You would think that a “global” effort to capture Joseph Kony, an African, for war crimes would at least entail some element of Africa in the solution, no? This video was directed solely at rich nations because they are the ones with citizens who have the means to donate by buying the action kits and posters.
2. They are promoting keyboard activism. If people use this viral exposure to do something useful, such as target the political root causes of the problems (something that we could do), then we ought to be impressed. But instead, the video depicts the Ugandan regime as "honorable", wishing to deploy soldiers to hunt a war criminal.
3. If you actually want to do something in the long-term about the LRA, Kony, Uganda and Africa, then take a consistent interest in Africa rather than hopping on board because everyone is wearing the same color t-shirt. f you want to do something positive in the short-term after watching the video and wish to make a donation to a group doing great work in the area, you can donate to Amnesty International, MSF, or War Child. At least these groups spend more money in Africa than they do in the US!
4. The video manipulates a child through a highly staged mock interview (09.20 and 13.00), is neo-colonial and says that only wealthy white people can cure poor non-white people of their problems.
5. Most of the video was filmed over five years ago.
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