Sunday, June 12, at 10:45 a.m. my alarm goes off telling me to wake up and get ready for my first seven-hour shift since coming home from Florida. I roll over and see a GroupMe notification from my group of close friends. I open it. I see a screenshot of a BuzzFeed article and my friend’s message below “I don’t know if yall (sic) saw this or not but what the f**k.” Groggy, I look at the screenshot harder until I can make out and process the title: "50 Killed At Orlando Gay Nightclub in Deadliest U.S. Mass Shooting." What? The? Hell?
This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. I look at the article. I go to Facebook, and I find dozens more articles. I find messages from my friends and fellow people in the LGBTQIA community. This is real. This happened. Not a joke, wake up.
Forty-nine people dead. 53 injured. That is the total that currently exists as I write this. One shooter. One person who changed the face of our community and our country. Articles say that the first shots rang out at 2 a.m,. and police raided the building at 5 a.m. That is three hours of action if Brock Turner’s father was writing this article. But he’s not. I am. That is 103 lives and bodies that have either been erased or changed forever. A community that has been reminded that our love is lesser than our straight and cis counterparts. A city that has the happiest place on earth that is now stained with the blood of two senseless unprovoked acts of violence within 72 hours. A country that will use 103 lives to enter into political battles for the rest of this election season for certain. This is real. This happened. Not a joke, wake up.
If you want the statistics here is a link to articles that will tell you them:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/06/12/shooting-orlando-club/85785254/
But here is my response to you, America. This is real. This happened. Not a joke, wake up. If you think that LGBTQIA people are equal and safe after we were granted marriage equality less than a full year ago, wake up. If you think that this shooter’s actions can be placed on the fact that he was Muslim and you can blame every Muslim in the world for this act, wake up. If you think that this isn’t a hate crime, wake up. Wake. Up.
Here is a list of dozens of hate crimes perpetrated against the LGBTQIA community in the past year:
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/tag/hate-crimes/
Look at it and deny that there is a threat to our community. There have been at least 16 trans lives taken in this year alone. Murdered in cold blood because they were transgender. Wake up.
I am a gay man. I have friends who have told me that I don’t have anything to fear because the LGBTQIA community is widely accepted now. Well, to those, I lovingly say wake up. Look around. It takes one person to change the face of our nation and our world. At any moment I, my community and minority communities everywhere can be reduced to numbers and statistics. Forty-nine dead, 53 injured.
I am angry. No, I am enraged. I am hurt. I am devastated. My heart is pouring out to those directly affected in Orlando. This is the worst act of terrorism on American soil since September 11th. The deadliest mass shooting that has been documented in our country. You cannot deny that we have a problem. You cannot sleep on this any longer.
To American lawmakers, look around at the world that we live in. Look at the world that we look to you to help us control. I am begging you, especially members of the GOP, I am absolutely begging you to do something and to try and prevent tragedies like this. Every time that you push a law on something that is directly related to diminishing a community of minorities, you create a window that allows people to expand on that ideology. Every time our leaders accuse a group of people that want to coexist peacefully of being sinful or sick, we perpetuate ideology that allows tragedies like this to happen. So do something. If you are going to use this tragedy to make a political statement, then wake up and protect the people that are being targeted and murdered. Protect the LGBTQIA community. Protect the Muslim community. Protect the African American community. Protect the Latino/a community. Protect women. Start protecting more than what you see when you look in the mirror.
To the "Christian Right," especially, I want you to take a minute and stop and think before you offer up your thoughts. If you have spent years demeaning and putting down our community. If you have tried to pray the gay away. If you stood against marriage equality. If you endorsed laws that put our trans community at risk by claiming they were a threat. If you use your Bible to damn us. If you have ever implied that queer people are inferior to you, then listen. Your prayers are not wanted. This is not your tragedy, this is ours and our allies. If you want someone to blame, then look in the mirror because your rhetoric opens doors for prejudice and tragedies like this to occur. A few prayers and kind words don't suddenly erase decades of oppression. You cannot use your God to damn us and also use God to try and alleviate our pain. If you want to help us, then change your rhetoric and change laws that oppress communities such as ours.
To my LGBTQIA community, I hear you. I hurt with you. I feel your anger and your pain. I am angry and devastated. This tragedy happened in Pride month. Happened to our community. Be safe and protect yourself. Do not allow people who seek to subdue us into submission to do so. Use your heartbreak and anger to protect yourselves and fight for future protections for every member of our community.
So, America, wake up. Stop sitting behind your keyboards and typing your outrage. Stop using prayer as your only source of action. Stop treating our minority communities as less than through your inaction and indifference. Wake. Up. This is your call to action, this is your sign. It is time to stand together in solidarity and it is time to protect everyone in this country. It is time that we stand up as a nation and figure out how to prevent tragedies like this.
We will not stop being who we are due to your fear tactics. We will not stop loving who we love. We will not go back in the closet. We will love and fight on harder than ever and we will not fear. We are Pulse, we are Orlando, we are those 103 people. We are united in our pain, our anger and our devastation. We are one community and we are one American people.
This is real. This happened. Not a joke, wake up.
