Maybe you heard about the Miami police department that was caught a few weeks ago using mugshots of black men for target practice when a visiting National Guard member recognized a mugshot of her brother on the firing range. The police chief initially defended the practice, saying mugshots of all races were used and the visiting Guard member had just happened to see all-black ones. But eventually, amid public outcry, the city council banned the practice and apologized.
A few days later, however, the Washington Post broke a new story: Lutheran clergy, discussing the incident on a closed Facebook group, had decided to respond by posting photos of themselves and asking the police to use those for target practice instead. The story picked up, and it’s been praised as awesome clergy activism, criticized for white savior-ism (almost all of the clergy who submitted photos are white), and continues to gather new photos on Twitter, clergy and not.
The tweets varied in tone, from sarcastic to angry to thoughtful. The ones that interested me the most were the ones that sounded helpful: “You have a hard job. I’m trying to help.”
Grateful for our public servants in law enforcement, I invite @myNMBPolice to #usemeinstead in target practice. pic.twitter.com/ZAIovw6bax
— Beth Maynard (@beth_may) January 18, 2015
Prayers for you & the work you do in the community. When you do target practice, please #usemeinstead @myNMBPolice pic.twitter.com/gryZcS083t — Kathi Johnson (@SmilingKIJ) January 19, 2015
.@myNMBPolice I’m very thankful for the work of law enforcement. Please #usemeinstead since #BlackLivesMatter . pic.twitter.com/PN1psa1l6p — Anne Lane Witt (@VaPriestess) January 18, 2015
That’s not the tone I usually take when the police have done something awful (so, you know, always). And a lot of the time being really damn angry is the appropriate response. But there’s been a lot of buzz about clergy activism since Ferguson, especially as peace-keepers when the verdict came down, and this might be an interesting example of that.