When I first heard of the Orlando Massacre, it was from my father and not from the media. He asked me if I had heard what happened, and with tears welling in his eyes, informed me that another mass shooting had occurred the previous night. I looked at him with weary eyes and an unpalatable, yet too familiar taste formed in my mouth, and I uttered something along the lines of “That’s terrible, but it makes sense.” My initial reaction was not shock or surprise, but almost a reluctantly numbing and somber acceptance. An acceptance, that goes along with a collective script of grieving and empty sympathy that typically ensues after mass shootings, which, might I add, have occurred every single week of the year but one in 2015, amounting to the equivalent of 353 shootings and 462 deaths. Now you see why I and many others in this country have become so hopelessly desensitized to gun violence; when gun violence becomes an everyday occurrence, it seems as if this internal war of gun violence and the second amendment we are fighting within the United States is an insurmountable one.
However, after processing the details of the reality of the largest massacre in US history, it finally hit me. It hit me like the senseless bullets, propelled by bigotry and hate, that ended so many lives this past Sunday. This massacre was different from the senseless violence we are so numb to seeing every day. It was different because the lives lost were targeted; targeted for who they loved, targeted for who they identified as, and targeted for how they expressed themselves. The lives lost on that day were the lives of people belonging to the Queer and Hispanic community, two communities which are already disproportionately disadvantaged, and two communities which I myself, am a part of.
"Orlando does not need your prayers, they need your outrage.”
-- WUSSY MAG, a popular online Queer zine.
The outpour of sympathy for the victims and their families is comforting, but it just isn’t enough. And in some instances, it also downright insulting and inappropriate. In the past couple of days, I have heard the phrase time and time again “We are all Orlando,” with some, including the mayor of Miami Beach, Philip Levine, during a vigil for the victims, going as far as saying “We are all part of the LGBT community tonight.” I’m sorry, mayor, but your sympathy, which echoes the trivialization of the struggles of Blacks in the U.S. by the “All Lives Matter” countermovement to the revolutionary “Black Lives Matter” movement, is unwarranted and unwanted. Were we “all” members of the queer community when North Carolina passed the bathroom laws? Were we “all” members of the queer community \when 21 trans women, mostly women of color, were brutally murdered as a result of hate crimes over the course of 2015? Are we “all” members of the queer community when we, are misgendered, made fun of, and excluded and erased from society? And then the same people, and I quote WUSSY, “mourn the loss of our fellow queers as if their actions aren’t similarly exclusionary.” It seems as though, although the “A” in LGBTQIA originally stood for asexual, straight allies seem to only care about queer people if they want “help with shopping” or “fashion advice” or, on the opposite end, if there was a massacre of 50 of us. There’s almost no in-between. Because most who identify as allies, who are all for marriage equality and rainbows and pride parades, are also complacent when it comes to helping fight and dismantle the deeper issues that are still destroying members of our community, members that are not only white, cis, gays, members such as Queer folks and Trans folks and POC, who are disproportionately discriminated against, killed and marginalized, members who are almost invisible in the eyes of the “Ally.” Because allies are oblivious to a crucial fact “[they] ignore their own casual queerphobia and transphobia because they don’t see how every act of hate or erasure, big or small, is connected.” I give great thanks to Wussy Mag for putting what I’m sure many queer people are feeling right now into words. When I heard the Governor of Florida speaking of the shooting, unable to even acknowledge the fact that it was LGBT people who were the victims and targets of this attack, and all he could say was that he “prays this never happens again,” my heart instantly filled with rage. I instantly thought to myself, how dare he. How dare he, and countless other primarily white male politicians, profess their sympathy and prayers for the victims when many of them (specifically conservatives) blocked bills protecting queer people, passed bills that were harmful to queer people and were silent when queer people demanded politicians to grant them fundamental human rights. It is this utterly disdainful hypocrisy that is not only unwanted but is amplifying the pain and igniting anger in the hearts of the queer community, when they should be left alone to grieve in peace.
We literally live in a country where it is illegal for a sexually active gay man to give blood, yet it is legal for a man who was investigated by the FBI to buy a semi-automatic weapon. We live in a country where all you need to do to get your hands on a weapon is cite your second amendment right and have a brief background check; you receive no training, need no license/registration, are not questioned, and are not tested for mental conditions (This is in Florida, laws vary from State to State). But yes, in order to be an American and protect your privileged white family in your suburban neighborhood, you need an Ak-47. Otherwise, who else would stop all the criminals on the loose from killing off your family? Oh, that’s right, maybe the police, since almost no mass shootings have been stopped by a civilian anyway.
OK, so we have established that this was, indeed, a hate crime. And we have established that America has serious gun problems, not just with having the highest mass shooting rate of any developed country, but also having the highest suicide death rate and highest gang violence death rate, all attributed to guns. And yes, there is evidence that this Sunday’s attack was in part an act of terror inspired by the radicalization of the Islamic State. But instead of demonizing Muslims like many Americans after acts of terror, or pinning Muslims against non-Muslims or the LGBT community, we must acknowledge that many things combined to allow this massacre to happen, but one this is for certain: we, as a nation and a society, allowed this to happen. We allowed Sateen to gain access to an automatic weapon even though he was previously questioned by the FBI TWICE and had previously threatened his coworkers. We allowed for the creation of ISIS when we went to war in Afghanistan and left a power vacuum in the Middle East. And, we allowed for the creation of a culture that normalizes violence, homophobia, and sexism amongst men. Although many people do not see how all these things are connected, they are. There has been an estimated high of 998 shootings since Sandy Hook. Two were committed by Muslim terrorists. All 998 were committed by men. You simply cannot look at this glaring fact and still claim that one of the main problems here doesn't stem from a hyper-masculine culture that allows and almost encourages the perpetuation of male violence. For men 15-29, gun homicides are the third leading cause of death, according to the NY Times. There is pure, senseless violence, but there is also violence that can be attributed to mental health issues. Men are much less likely to go to the doctor for mental health problems, which is why men end up killing themselves three times more than women, most, with the aid of a gun.
To clarify once more: The Orlando Massacre was not just an act of terrorism or hate; but also a result of an insufficient gun regulation, the stigmatization of men's mental health, and the pervasiveness of its instability along with the normalization of hyper-masculinity as a dominate trait amongst men.
But, of course, the media did not waste a second making sure everyone knew it was a “gay” nightclub and that the shooter was from Afghanistan. But, like everyone who was there knew, it was more than just a gay night club and it was more than just a radicalized Muslim. Pulse is well known for hosting drag events and being a popular place for trans people as well. Like many LGBT people know, nightclubs are safe spaces. They are places where queer people can simply relish in their queerness and be who they truly are, at least for a night, without reservations or worry of judgment; a place where queer people don't have to worry about holding their lover's hands or getting attacked because they are wearing lipstick. But, as we now know, queer people are not even safe in their own spaces anymore.
As for the shooter, there have been multiple reports, even by his ex-wife, that he himself, may have been gay. Workers at Pulse nightclub reported seeing him there multiple times before and others reported seeing him on gay dating apps. So this complicates the issue even further, adding a layer of heart-shattering irony. It is clearly even more about male violence fueled by internalized homophobia, which is common among gay men who repress their homosexual feelings due to society's, including its religions, demonization of male femininity and homosexuality.
However, we cannot ignore the fact that, many religious people, regardless of what they practice, consistently condemn the existence of homosexuality as unnatural, and the extremism in religion is what allows for the basis of much of the bigotry surrounding the LGBT community. So whether you are talking about jihadism or sacrilege, religion is and has always been one of the largest flames fueling the fires of oppression, bigotry, and ultimately, murder.
Although we cannot change religious ideology that was established thousands of years ago or the culture of hyper-masculinity and violence amongst men overnight, and we cannot change the gun laws that have existed in the United States since the times when we actually needed them to hunt and gain freedom from Great Britain, we can begin to try. Education is the most powerful tool we have. Not religion, not violence, not hate. We can try to educate people in the name of science and then try to teach them to accept the differences amongst us, instead of erasing the struggles that different people face so people are unaware of why they are the way they are. Educate people on how men are statistically more prone to committing violent acts, in part because they suppress their emotions, like Omar Sateen ostensibly did, with his sexual orientation. Let them know that this is a problem and that having emotions is human, while resorting to violence is not.
And, lastly, use all the outrage and sadness and loss you may feel, and channel it into a cause that will help prevent this from ever happening again. Write your governors, your mayors, your congress; let them know how you feel about the current gun laws, let them know that the blood of the every single victim of a weapon of mass destruction obtained legally, is on their hands, too. Let them know you demand change.
Let them know that what your country needs is change. Not prayers, but change; political, social, economic, change.
Because prayers are not going to end the struggles of the queer community or encourage politicians to pass laws to protect them. It is time for minorities and their struggles being swept under the rug in order to benefit the already privileged majority, to end.
Channel your love, channel your anger, and incite change.
