Just over a week has passed since 50 people were killed during a tragic shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and people are still digesting and reacting to the worst mass shooting in America’s history. From celebrities to the POTUS, there has been an outpouring of support, expression of sympathy and downright outrage as details of the days and hours leading up to Omar Mateen‘s usurping of Pulse get revealed, analyzed and explained.
To make matters significantly worse, yesterday, a bill that would have allowed for stricter and more expansive background checks on people trying to buy firearms in America was rejected on the Senate floor; a large majority of the politicians that voted “nay” receive monetary compensation from the National Rifle Association. The timing of the bill’s unfortunate outcome couldn’t have been worse, as the nation is still reeling from horror stories of both the Pulse shooting, and the murder-suicide that claimed the life of singer Christina Grimmie just days before.
Frank Ocean has largely strayed away from social media since shortly after releasing his debut album, channel ORANGE, in 2012, but he’s been known to have an affinity for expressing himself on Tumblr. Just before channel ORANGE dropped, he penned the now infamous letter announcing that he was in love with a man and posted it to Tumblr. Today, he’s used his Tumblr to divulge his thoughts on the Orlando tragedy, and how it affects his perception of humanity.
I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard it’s in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, I’m scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?
