We've had another Band-Aid, this time to help countries fighting Ebola. So cue the complaining! People have criticized the optics of rich white celebrities coming to the aid of poor Africans. And they've complained that the song paints a negative picture of Africa.
This is part of a bigger problem in modern society, that we want charity without the connotations of charity. That is, please give money to help these people, but don't acknowledge that they are needy. I think this attitude comes from a perfect storm of ideology: The very liberal would resist describing any group in absolute negative terms (particularly compared to the West) while the very conservative see neediness as inherently bad. Surely we can get beyond that and acknowledge that circumstance sometimes put good people in need of help from others.
The fact is that Band-Aid is a symbol of a screwed-up society. We live in a world where one group of people have way more money than everyone else, and that group of people tend to follow the instructions of their entertainers. Realizing this, the entertainers ask the people to give money to poorer people. That's essentially what happens, and it is ridiculous. But I think we can agree that the entertainers asking people to give to the less fortunate is the one sensible part of it. The stupid parts of it are the concentration of wealth in the West, and the exaggerated place celebrities have as trend-setters. Getting angry at the celebrities themselves for making the best of a crazy situation doesn't make sense.
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