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If they gunned me down, what picture would they use? That’s the question African Americans have been asking after the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
Social media users posted two contrasting photos of themselves with the tagline: “#iftheygunnedmedown what photo would they use?” The idea was to challenge how the media portray black people.
According to African-American news website The Root, the campaign makes a “statement on how the media draws a biased narrative when it comes to telling the stories of black men and women.”
The image of Brown that sparked the Twitter hashtag showed the teen wearing a red singlet, looking down at the camera, and pulling a peace sign with his fingers (although some have interpreted it to be a gang sign). Some news organisations chose to use this photo when tweeting about his death.
“#IfTheyGunnedMeDown is not only a sad commentary on what it means to be black in America but also shows that in order to have our own narrative correctly reported, we have to do the reporting ourselves,” wrote The Root’s Yesha Callahan.
In one photo, user @King_Ghidorah5 posted a photo of himself sitting on his bed looking menacingly at the camera, while gesturing. In the second photo, he’s wearing military uniform and reading to school kids.
Brown, who was 18, was shot and killed in broad daylight on Saturday, two days before he was to start college. Looters targeted more than a dozen businesses in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson overnight Sunday after a vigil on the footpath where Brown died erupted into clashes with police armed with tear gas and clubs.
Brown's death stirred comparisons to the February 2012 fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida by pistol-toting neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who claimed he acted in self-defence. He went on to be acquitted of murder, two years ago this week.
It also renewed a debate about race and law enforcement in the US, a month after the death of an asthmatic African-American father of five who was subjected to a "choke hold" by New York police in full view of passers-by.
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