Out singer Frank Ocean has penned a
response to the mass shooting in Orlando.
Forty-nine people died and dozens were
injured when a lone gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub, the Pulse.
The killer, Omar Mateen, 29, pledged
allegiance to ISIS during a 911 call from inside the club. Reports
have also linked Mateen to gay dating apps and placed him previously in
the club, and at least one man has told officials that he had sex
with the killer, raising questions such as did Mateen hate gays or
himself?
In his Tumblr
post, Ocean also reminds us that religion plays a part in
fomenting homophobia.
Below is Ocean's post in its entirety.
“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?”