UGH Disgusted by a cheap plea to reblog

This post about Female Genital Mutilation made me sick. I guess you can say it triggered me (even though I haven’t experienced it myself, the violence depicted is too much to bear).

Is the photo necessary? Is that Social Justice pornography necessary? Do you people need to objectify that child again and again to feel better about “caring” for the cause of FGM? Have we lost our humanity so much that we need to see the suffering to understand the extent of the problem? Have we lost our capability of empathy to the point that we need to actually lower ourselves to these tactics of visual assault? And make no mistake, the visual assault is not on us for seeing that poor girl. The assault in on the child who did not consent to being reblogged 5000 times by a bunch of strangers who now feel that they care about the cause and have helped spread awareness.

No, you didn’t help spread awareness. You participated in the worst kind of slacktivism I had the misfortune to witness. You used the suffering of a child to appease your misguided need for change and making a difference. The shame is on whoever thought reblogging poverty and suffering porn was a reflection of human decency.


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