Bridging the Distance between Criticism and Activism
As we all watched the groundswell and subsequent backlash of the Kony 2012 campaign, I could not help but get wrapped up in the momentum. As one who promotes student service and social action, I was overwhelmed by the attention garnered by a movement fueled in large portion by youth.
I have had more than moderate exposure to the work of Invisible Children and have seen the organization’s marked ability to empower young people. As I watched the video, I perceived a bit of what critics would begin to highlight in coming days. I want to briefly share my opinion, not because it matters, but because it helps contextualize my comments.
Did the film smack a bit of “The White Man’s Burden?” Sure.
Have I occasionally found myself struggling with similar false messianic expectations while in developing communities suffering grave injustice? Absolutely.
Did I cringe a little when director Jason Russell included so much video of his young son, Gavin, processing the brutal tactics of the LRA? Yes, but not because it was inappropriate, for I have committed to speak frankly with my own children about injustice. I recoiled a bit because of how intimate this familial moment was and questioned the wisdom in sharing it with a staggering viewership.
Did I think that the organization oversimplified the complexities of the conflict and resolution? Without question.
Do I think this was dishonest? Absolutely not.
I raised some of these questions with my Social Action students because I thought the video occasioned a great conversation of not only the brutality of the specific conflict but also about the nature of true activism. Their thoughts were a smattering of opinions, but most came down to, “Why would anyone fault these guys for trying to change the world and help kids? I think they really care and believe in what they’re doing. At least they’re giving us [young people] a way to do something.” Their comments aligned with much of my own sentiment regarding the film and organization, but surprisingly, their dialogue was far more revealing to me about the state of our education system and the opportunities and expectations afforded them.
As an educator and founder of an educational nonprofit, I spend a lot of time in small groups of teachers and administrators—from the lounge to the board room. There are days when a teacher walks into their twenty minute lunch break absolutely effervescent in the afterglow of a light-bulb moment with a student, but the conversation more regularly degrades into war stories. “You’ll never believe what ______ did today. I assigned this project, and only half the class turned it in. Kids these days just don’t care.”
This industry is undeniably brutal. Nowhere else are the stakes so high and the rewards so paltry. You can have a seeming pivotal breakthrough with a student one day only to find they are withdrawing the next because of instability at home. It can be gut wrenching and leave one jaded, prone to grumbling. We saw this same tendency in response to the Kony video. Again, I welcomed the discourse the movie afforded, but what began as an honest reflection on activism by some concerned individuals quickly degraded to the nastiest sort of character attack imaginable. Forbes posted an entry in which the contributor harangued Jason Russell as “an atrocity tourist and Kony capitalist shopping for a cause to fund his film career.” Many seemed almost giddy to watch video footage of Jason Russell’s tragic reactive psychosis as a result of the stress following the Kony video going viral. The world seemed to shift too easily from watching a 30 minute video purposed at changing the world to a 30 second spectacle of a naked man pounding the pavement and shouting obscenities. There was a vein of folks whispering, “See…told you so.”
On the heels of the most successful social media campaign in history, critics were already spewing why they hated it. Again, I shared some of their concerns, but why did such venom manifest so quickly?
I think one of the greatest contributors is an almost reflexive sense of guilt when we see a tragedy like that depicted in the Kony video. This guilt requires a genuine human response; yet, instead of the adaptation that would be required by such a response in our current routine, we settle for critique. By quickly formulating a negative presumption of the subject, we essentially justify our distance while at the same time appearing informed. We are never required to actually do anything. It is infinitely easier to engage in criticism than activism.
As I painfully waded through the muck of the blogosphere, I could not help but find it eerily familiar to the teachers’ lounge. Our fatigue and frequent disappointment seem to relegate us to the most anemic response to our ailing education system—complaining. We critique the latest strategies on assessment and resent the increased expectations coupled with decreased resources and compensation. We are quick to point out all the reasons why it will not work or how unfair said policy is, but what are we doing to fix it? We feel like martyrs for struggling so heroically in a broken system, but we rarely engage in the activism and innovation that the current state of our schools should evoke from their most stalwart proponents.
On my worst days, I can find my disdain for the system seep into my perception of my students. I begin to define them by their shortcomings and prophesy their lack luster performance. What must it feel like for a student to enter a classroom with the intention of learning only to be met with a presumption of his indifference? Maybe in some small, similar way, Jason Russell felt people having no experience with him as a person begin to not just critique his nobly intentioned life’s work but bludgeon his character. I hear these presumptions from educators across the country, “Kids just don’t care. How can I teach if they don’t want to learn? These students lack a moral compass.” We use these sentiments to justify the growing distance between ourselves and the students we serve. It is easier to have an opinion than a response—criticism vs. activism. If these excuses to disengage are true, then we should be scared witless and broken hearted. If we are on the cusp of losing a generation, then we should conjure every innovative practice possible in response, not bitch in the lounge.
Educators are not the only ones fighting this entropy; critics of the Kony film quickly moved from maligning the content and creator to demeaning its supporters (namely young people) with pejorative terms like slacktivists—condescendingly dismissing their naïve assertion that they could change the world by clicking a mouse or switching their profile picture. Rather than getting behind these excited and impassioned kids, the world labeled them. Was their enthusiasm naïve and their message idealistic? Absolutely. But before you use that as a disqualifier of the movement, I challenge you to find a more naïve and idealistic piece of rhetoric than Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream.”
Invisible Children and the young people they inspire were derided for merely building awareness and offering no sustainable change. I whole heartedly disagree with that characterization of awareness as a sort of poor man’s activism. All true activism is built upon the essential first step of awareness. In fact, at Finding Heroes, we design entire systems for schools on this basic principle of developing students through a progressive three step process:
Invisible Children is doing a laudable job of developing leaders and advocates, and we should be learning from their model. Just look at this video of one of their interns and how her experience with the organization has shaped the ultimate direction of her life.
When is the last time you saw so much enthusiasm from a group of teenagers for something that really mattered? They are hungry for an opportunity to make a difference. They want their lives to matter. They need schools that believe in more than their ability to amass grade points. They need adults to model passion and engagement while affording them opportunities to join in. I am finished masking my disillusionment as critique, and I am committed to doing whatever it takes to bridge the daunting distance between my whiteboard and their desks.
In 1991, when I was a freshman in high school, a dictatorial government used it’s mercenaries to invad Kuwait and what has now been termed by some as “Gulf War I” began. Knowing very little about the whole event, I wrote “No Blood for Oil” on a school notebook. As the child of a Vietnam veteran who spent much of his time railing against the governmental authority which drafted him and his friends into a war which they did not choose to fight, indeed, which they felt had no purpose, I thought that slapping a peace sign on my notebook was a noble good and that somehow this meant that I was cool, knowledgble, and worldly. Of course, I grew up to find that geo-politics is much more complicated than that. However, what I can’t erase it this–I was fourteen, a war broke out, people died; it seemed wrong; I wanted to stop it. I wanted an adult to guide me through that moment and to show me what I could do to engage in productive protest, or at least, enter the conversation. That never happened. Because my teachers were also Veterans, they felt it was too controversial to even discuss. We had to piece together a sense of the war from CNN’s twenty second sound bites. I’m afraid this whole scenario plays out again and again in a system where teachers feel that they can not speak honestly with their students about poltics, reglion, and the world. I know it’s not simple; I’m not saying I have the answers, but I applaud Mr. McWhorter and his Social Action class. Whatever else comes from this current generation of students, I know that they have turned on, tuned in, and are not about to drop out. They are engaging the system to find creative solutions to the activists’ delimma. For this, I applaud them every moment.
Julie-
I am humbled by your comments. The students in our Social Action classes are certainly plugged in. They are not alone. This generation is hungry for an opportunity to affect meaningful impact. This doesn’t necessarily separate them from you and your peace-emblazoned spiral. The beauty is that they have more access than ever before in history to get real-time data and partnership opportunities with organizations doing meaningful work. Maybe the last ingredient is adults to model a sincere commitment to the marginalized in their local and global communities. You may not have a peace sign on your notebook anymore, but the compassion you display daily is an inspiration to your students.
Interesting off shoot of this piece is it brings into focus one of a humans beings most basic frailties. “The fear of getting involved for the fear of being criticized” Thankfully those that have chosen to overcome this fear have often succeeded in changing the world. We all may see and agree on the injustice but only a few choose to do something about it. There will always be critics but the glory will go to those who fight on the floor of the arena rather than sit in the stands and watch. I applaud Kap and every educator in this effort. The successful teachers will be the ones that continue to wake up every day, put on the hardhat and go to work, staying upbeat and confident in the fact they are making a difference. This is what Jason Russell had in mind when he made the film.
Mark-
As always you pump me up. I have to drag myself out of the stands regularly. The needs of our world, and especially our education system, are overwhelming enough to keep one planted in their seat (or hiding behind a podium or desk) for a lifetime. It’s a long, scary leap from the stands to the field. I don’t always exhibit the courage to jump, but voices like yours are a consistent reminder of the necessity of courage when the stakes are so high. Thanks for caring enough to push me over the rail.
The parallels you have drawn between KONY and the teacher’s lounge is right on. I have been involved with the Invisible Children since my senior year in college. I have watched the movement evolve, and although I have had my criticisms of the organization and its tactics, I always found myself drawn back by the simplicity of their message: helping people is a good thing. The movement and the quick and scathing criticisms following definitely left me a bit bewildered. You have verbalized here why the response was so disturbing: criticism was used to rationalize away our personal or national responsibility to this global issue. Apathy is held supreme and the cool kids can go back to their cafeteria table and stick their consciences back in their pockets. The same is true of education. However, I feel teachers, specially in “right-to-work” Texas, are perhaps left to drown in the puddles of mediocracy and apathy because we don’t feel we can address or fix the system. We feel better when we can regurgitate our troubles on the table of the teacher’s lounge and at least feel camaraderie in our helplessness. Few of us speak up, and we ultimately “fear,” as Mark mentioned, paying the price for our words. Then again, what’s fixing school funding, flawed standardized testing systems, and bloated administrations in comparison to stopping the #1 bad guy in the world from continuously kidnapping, raping, and murdering children? Perhaps we shouldn’t feel so helpless after all. Perhaps we need to inspire our base and empower students, teachers, and communities to fix our broken systems.
Gaby-
“Perhaps we need to inspire our base…” Well said, friend. This year has been a rough one for most in our field. To complain is natural, but we must not allow ourselves to sit in the funk. Working in a people driven industry comes with a host of difficulties that we seem perpetually ill equipped to manage, and our systems seem to lack the support to foster the innovation necessary to meet these needs. So what do we do? We perpetually remind eachother that, like you said, “Helping people is a good thing.” As educators, whether functioning perfectly or not, we are invited each day to engage in something truly GOOD. Thanks for the reminder.
To be honest , I did not watch the IC Kony 2012 video ( I saw the original IC DVD several times and I’v followed IC’s work ) , but I have seen firsthand what Kony’s gang has done to Northern Uganda.
I was surprised when criticism of IC started. I challenged a few friends to dig a little deeper , and they challenged me to dig a little deeper. My friends pointed me toward NGO’s that invested the vast majority of their resources into Northern Uganda. I reminded my friends that my understanding of IC’s primary purpose is to raise awareness in the USA that leads to political action. After much discussion , we all left the discussion with a better understanding.
One of the reasons why I had a hard time understanding the criticism was that I have witnessed Kony’s terror firsthand. Several years ago I was working with an international NGO , we were meeting potential partners across Africa and when we got to Kampala our hosts suggested we visit the work they were doing in Northern Uganda.
The next day was quite difficult , I noticed our hosts become very serious when we crossed the Nile. Soon we found ourselves in an IDP camp. The 1,000+ people living in the camp were without food because Kony’s gang were killing WFP workers. Something changes in your soul when you share a conversation with dying people and you are going back to suburbia in a week.
Disease , famine , hopelessness became reality when I almost stepped on a young child that appeared to be dying.
As the day progressed , I met a child that had escaped Kony’s gang. I expected skin and bones , but I’ll never forget the 1,000 yard stare of a child who what shattered.
I’ll also never forget the fear in our hosts eyes when we almost got caught on the north side of the Nile as darkness was approaching.
We ended up partnering with a smaller group who’s stated objective was to care for and restore broken street children.
Soon we discovered that the primary objective of our partner was not the welfare of the children.
Yes , we were disappointed with our former partner , but we did not allow our disappointment with our parter deter our engagement.
Trey-
Your personal experience in Uganda reminds me of the human dimension to each story. We are not talking about sytems and processes–whether in American education or Ugandan development. We are talking about people. I love that you can always see through the fog straight to the heart of the story. You are a man with a keen eye for the suffering, and for that I am thankful.
Interesting commentary, Kap. I’m struck mostly by your observation that people tend to criticize rather than speak positively and/or take action — an observation I think is exactly right. There must be something about human nature that makes people think negatively, mock others, and show contempt, and there must be something about social media that facilitates the worst kind of this behavior. I mostly notice it in politics — Facebook and Twitter are full of mean and ugly political criticisms that people wouldn’t dare to say in person, face-to-face. But the opposition to KONY 2012 has been no different: it’s been ugly.
This is a good lesson for your students: social media can be a double-edged sword. It can facilitate awareness, action, and advocacy; but it can also draw contempt from the peanut gallery. Depending on the problem or issue your students are tackling, they would be well served to think strategically about the use of social media in their social action plans.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
We as Americans like jumping on the band wagon to help children over seas. Which there is nothing wrong with this but there are better ways to bring awareness toothed issues at hand. But in all reality we can’t even take care of the problems right here in our own country. So we as Americans need to fix our own problems before we can truly help others.