Clergy say #UseMeInstead to police using photos of black men as shooting targets

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Sarah Butler Schueller
Published January 28, 2015

After a group of Evangelical Lutheran pastors learned that a Florida police department had used mug shots of actual people for shooting practice, they decided offer their own photos for the department to use instead.

"If you must use pictures of real humans for your target practice, we request that you use ours," the clergy members wrote on a Facebook event page. " …. Our faith teaches us that all human life is sacred. And when human life is devalued, Jesus teaches us to put ourselves in the place of those whose humanity is denied, just as he did."

The photos, tweeted with the hashtag “#UseMeInstead,” prompted other clergy and the general public to join the pastors by tweeting their photos as well.

But the hashtag has also sparked debate. The Huffington Post reports that Broderick Greer, a student at Virginia Theological Seminary, was concerned that faces showing up under #UseMeInstead were mostly white.

“I’m conflicted. I have so many wonderful white clergy friends involved in that hashtag,” Greer said. “But it’s fallen into a ‘white savior’ narrative, that these white clergy have come to the aid of these helpless black people. And I don’t think that’s what we’re trying to promote."

Nyasha Junior, an assistant professor at the Howard University School of Divinity, also told the Huffington Post that she noticed black clergy members hadn’t embraced #UseMeInstead. “I think that’s because black clergy recognize that they could have been those photos, that they look like those mug shots and that their lives really are at stake," she said.

What do you think? Check out some of the #UseMeInstead tweets below.

About the author

Sarah Butler Schueller

 Sarah Butler Schueller is a senior editor at U.S. Catholic.

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