Kony 2012 and a very bad proposal

Lately life has been extremely busy and I'm out more than I'm home.  In a way that has been nice; I miss the rapidity of my undergraduate life.  However, I've slumped so far into doing nothing a lot of the time that I'm really starting to miss a lot of my alone time and TV time.

So in the little spare time that I do have, I often check Facebook or watch an episode of some god awful TV show on Netflix.  Lately, Facebook has been taken over by this "Kony 2012" craze.  I'd like to elaborate on many of the comments that I have left (potentially on your) walls and get my friends thinking theoretically, practically and conceptually about what the Kony 2012 campaign is trying to accomplish.  I'd like to acknowledge that I appreciate the spirit of the video and I appreciate the want of people to get informed about issues happening all over the globe.  That being said, the Kony 2012 campaign has also brought up some serious concerns that I feel cannot all be addressed on one photo comment.

1) If I could compare the Kony 2012 campaign to anything, it would be raging hormones.  Except replace hormones with early post-colonialism.  The constant personalization, the use of "we", and the comparisons to conditions in North America makes it a fairly traditional "white man's burden" or "white guilt" type of video (thus, as far as I'm concerned, the film's intention is not to inform but rather to make you buy into an idea).  World Vision is probably the worst I can think of for using this technique to keep their business charity running. Essentially, it makes you think about all the wrong that white people have done, or all the things that white people could have done to alleviate certain negative situations in the former colonies (especially Africa). Middle-class people tend to be pretty lazy, but they have such high amounts of guilt that they feel the need to donate to these causes they know nothing about to make themselves feel like they are making a difference in the world.  I also hate how it is implied that "we" have to save these people. It's a shame that this attitude and mindset is still so prevalent.  If you're big into discourse analysis, I'd love your take on the post-colonial aspects of the Kony 2012 video.

2) The video does not contextualize the situation in Uganda.  Dude. Just... Look up something on Ugandan history. The implied support for President Museveni throughout the video makes me nauseous.  The Ugandan military has also used child soldiers in the past against the LRA and other neighbouring countries, such as the DRC. A major problem in the North American psyche is that we always have to look for a good guy and a bad guy and this video makes no exception to this (possibly for the sake of clarity, again proving that this video has no intention of informing).

3) The video implies support for American military intervention in Uganda.  Did you support Iraq? Probably not. But hey, the Americans were there to get Saddam, yes? Ruthless dictator, killed lots of people, yes?  So why the hell would you support a mission in Uganda when the principles will be identical to that of Iraq (except there is no monetary gain from being in Uganda aside from the "war is profitable" principle).

I'm not saying you should agree with me, but I want you to do is think about it. De-construct it for all of you post-modernists out there.

ON A CHEERIER NOTE:

Proposal writing is failing miserably. Nothing on paper yet. Blrrhh.

Wheeeeee!

After a very up and down week (pros: got a great job for the summer and potentially all next year, got a meeting with a potential supervisor for my research project, did "alright" on my archives paper, did well on my preservation paper.  cons: did terribly on my management paper for something that I couldn't have possibly caught, roommate problems, general busyness) I felt the need to finally update my blog!

Life Lessons!

11.  Things generally don't turn out how you think they will - but that's okay.  In this last semester, I've had an up and down, twisty-turning thinking about what I want to do with my life (aaagain).  I've decided to try and put together a research proposal for next year that is turning into a nightmare. I've decided to take special topics classes next year. I've decided to take a research methods course through the sociology dept. next year.  Worst of all: I've decided to apply to Ph.D. programs next year.  By programs, I mean only one program and that is the Ph.D. LIS program at University of Toronto.  They have a great archives speciality and faculty that specializes in user interactions in archival contexts.  No other school in North America can offer me that (and trust me, I've tried to look at other schools to apply to and the only other I could apply to in Canada would be UBC, which is wrong for me).  I've also decided to apply for my M.A. in Public History at UWO.  That way, I would gain experience in building digital archival interfaces and exhibits while getting historical experience.  It would also open up more Ph.D. options for the future.

12. Just because you're doing poorly in certain classes doesn't make you dumb. In some ways, it makes you smarter.  I'm in a program that would rather give marks to format than to content, a fact I find really upsetting.  You could write the best paper in the world, but if it's not in APA (and completely correct in APA), you will lose mondo marks.  If your title page is not set up "correctly" or your abstract doesn't have it's own page, watch those marks disappear.  They say they're teaching us for the real world, but I really don't think anyone in the real world gives a shit about formatting unless you decide to continue in academia (even then, those types of things are caught by editors).

Until next time!