I didn’t know until today that many of the people who died in the Pulse massacre were Latinx and/or people of color. Thus my statement about “50 of us [sic]” being killed is not really accurate. I have some similarities with the people who died, but, because of our races, our types of privilege and oppression interacted and manifested differently. My initial emotional reaction might be to take the attack personally, but it ain’t really about me; it’s about them.

I would like to add to my enraged editorial the following:

Mateen was a part of a society that promoted his murders through the institutionalized oppression of people based on sex, sexuality, and gender, the valorization of toxic masculinity, officially sanctioned anti-Muslim racism and xenophobia, institutionalized devaluation of Latinx and POC, and easy access to largely unregulated war-grade machines of death, just to name a few influences. Analysis, commentary, and action on this massacre must account for these factors if we are going to create a more humane and just future where stuff like this doesn’t happen.

And also:

…Thinking and praying alone will accomplish nothing. We need to challenge the anti-marriage campaigns and the bathroom police and rule their legal wangling unconstitutional. We need to focus on and celebrate the beauty and awesomeness of people of color and Latinx in our novels, our poetry, and our songs. We need to make movies about men who face life’s challenges with compassion and honesty, rather than blowing up everything in their path. We need to stop supporting war in and/or invading Muslim countries and then regarding the refugees as vermin. We need to enact some serious blanket bans on guns. In other words, we need to do something else besides the same old shit.

My point is not that people don’t do these activities. It’s just that rhetoric remains empty without proof in action.