The Unit of Caring

Anonymous asked: Why doesn't anybody talk about the East Timorese genocide by Indonesia that Bill Clinton and others supported?

If you’re knowledgeable about this subject and want a conversation about it to happen, I recommend writing up a post with a summary and recommendations for additional reading. 

I know it can be frustrating to see people not talking about something you consider incredibly important, but I recommend avoiding the ‘why is no one talking about this??’ way of starting a discussion. I assume the thing you actually want is for people to be informed, not to start a debate over whose fault it is that they aren’t already informed, and starting with ‘why is no one talking about this’ unfortunately usually leads to a conversation about, predictably, whose fault that is and whether people are guilty/blameworthy for not being informed and whether the subject is in fact undercovered and so on and so forth. 

Instead, say ‘this is something you should know about and I encourage you to read the following sources’, and hopefully soon it’ll stop being true that people don’t talk about the issue and then debates about why they don’t talk about it can be avoided. 

• 7 July 2017
• #genocide cw
• 59