I've struggled with the idea of writing this since the nightclub shooting that occurred mere hours away from where I live. Acknowledging and processing a tragedy of this scale, even if you did not personally know a victim, is always something that takes time and reflection. We've seen it before: gun violence, terrorism, hates crimes ... but what was deeply and uniquely upsetting to me in regards to the Pulse nightclub shooting was the divide that took place afterwards. For days after the shooting, I witnessed a kind of ugliness I never would have imagined splayed out across Facebook and other forms of social media.

I didn't want to voice my opinion because of this ugliness. I didn't want to be shot down as "wrong" or "insensitive" or anything else that would make me feel like crawling into a hole for offending somebody in the face of such a tragedy. The divide I saw made my soul hurt. If we, the human race, cannot be united in the face of tragedy, then what hope do we have to ever be united at all.

The comments I began to see that initiated this divide were along the lines of "this is a hate crime, let the LGBQT community mourn in peace, don't make it about you" and "this was not an act of terrorism, it was a hate crime in a country that fears homosexuality." Of course any reasonable person will acknowledge that these are not thoughts held by the whole community, but I saw them often. Firstly, as the shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS, you cannot ignore the connection to the terrorist attacks we see around the world. Secondly, and I feel this should go without saying, but hate crimes and terrorism are not distant relatives. Any act of terror is directed at a community based on radical, disagreeing views. Why have we made this a competition between an LGBTQ problem and an American national security problem? An American citizen should be able to mourn and fear for their own reasons, as should the LGBTQ community, without opposition and ridicule from either community.

I then saw a post with two head shots: one of the Pulse shooter and one of the Charleston church shooter. The headline asked what makes one a terrorist and the other a lone wolf. The truth of the matter is the media grappled with this a year ago after the shooting in Charleston. After some debate, it was understood to be an act of domestic terrorism. Furthermore, and what I personally find upsetting, is why would anyone use such a tragedy to push an agenda of illustrating racial bias. I would never venture to say racial bias doesn't exist, to do so would be reaching a level of ignorance that I cannot fathom, but in this case it wasn't about his name or the color of his skin. He pledged allegiance to ISIS, a terrorist group, and that is why he has been labeled as such. We also saw agenda pushed for stricter gun control.

When an act of mass violence causes disharmony, even though perhaps it was not the exact kind the perpetrator had intended, we are still falling into the trap that the terror created. We are unified by the human experience, although it comes in many shades, we are unified. Let us not change that.