It’s a Sunday night you’re partying with your friends celebrating your Latin roots. You’re dancing, singing, drinking having the best time ever and suddenly you hear gunshots and see people falling to the floor. You start running looking for an exit trying to save your life but it’s already too late, you’ve been shot. You’ve been hurt but you keep running, but you get shot again and the pain gets getting worst and you can’t run anymore, you get shot again, again and again and at this moment you know you’re going to die and all you can do is lay on the floor waiting for the moment everything turns black.
This is an example of what happened the morning of June 13 in Pulse Nightclub, Orlando. Hours later the news were considering the biggest mass shooting in the history of the United States. Friends and families desperate for information looking for the smallest clue that their loved one was alive. Lines of approximately seven hours to donate blood. Hours of anxiety listening how the number of victims kept raising. #OrlandoStrong trending for hours almost days. Everything was Orlando because we were all suffering Orlando.
What I saw from days from the shooting, that I would like to clarify that it was a hate crime and not a terrorist attack, was companies joining the movement and sharing their condolences with the LGBTQ+ community which I thought that it was really sweet and good for society. What I realized was that those companies like other people needed that horrible attack to happen to finally open their eyes and accept that society is wrong and that hate and fear are real. That those people sacrifice their lives when they come out. Being part of that community living in this society is like not being white, tall, blonde, blue eyed, in Nazi Germany. People are being killed because they don’t love who society thinks it’s ok. People are being killed for loving.
But what irritates me the most is how companies are using this for the good of their economy. More and more companies are now “standing with Orlando” like if it was some kind of new “whip and nae nae” or “hit the quan”. But no Orlando was real just like thousands of the other crimes toward the LGBTQ+ community. This is real, people are dead because if this. This is definitely not the moment for your promotion. Don’t get me wrong I am more than happy that more and more people are now supporting and defending the Community, but my question is why now? Why not sooner? Why did people have to die for you to realize the reality of this disgusting society?
This Sunday June 26 was the LGBTQ+ pride parade in Puerto Rico and this year was the year that most people went. I’ve gone with my family for years but this year we decided not to go because we knew it was going to be full with hypocrites and while I was in the beach seeing how people were posting on Facebook how supportive they are of the Community all I could think about was “You weren’t thinking that when they got the right to marry.” or “Weren’t you the one that last year wrote a status explaining of why gay people should go to hell?” or “Aren’t you the one that believes gay people need ‘fixing” or “You have gay with an big black x written in your Twitter bio” or “You use ‘gay’ as an insult.” I guess people are horrible even when the circumstances are it by themselves.
