After the mass shooting of mostly Latinx queer and trans people at the Pulse night club in Orlando, the Nolose board asked Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and people of color members of our community if they would like to write anything to be posted to the Nolose website. Here are pieces that our community members asked us to publish.
Irene McCalphin wrote:
In a few days I’m going to be in the forest with my queer wyld magical family and there I’ll scream and cry until I’m senseless and without voice.
This mass murder is being labeled as the worst in this country but they forget the white race riots of 1824 to 1950 and the Red Summer of 1919 where tens of thousands blacks were murdered.
They forget the Chinese massacre of 1871 where whites burned businesses, lynched over 20 people and displaced an entire community.
They forget the entire El Camino Real, the legacy of every single mission built in the name of manifest destiny.
They forget every case where a trans or queer person of color was murdered and the perpetrator of the crime went free, got a slap on the wrist or was never found.
They forget how officers of the law can murder and mistreat people of color on the basis of their skin color
They want to forget so they can label this terrorist as an “other”, a lunatic or the product of radical religion instead of owning what he really is:
A product of a home grown eurocentric, homophobic, heteronormantive, misogynistic , fear mongering that is at the very foundation of this culture and as American as apple pie.
American culture kills intersectional queers everyday “legally” by closing down Planned Parenthoods, denying jobs, gentrification, wage gaps, bathroom laws, bullying, trolling, desirability politics, media misrepresentation and the mass appropriation and monotization of tools we have created to survive.
Blame the shooter
Blame the gun
And remember all the ways you and even I have participated in his creation.
Punish the person AND shatter the system.
Jessica Wilson wrote:
In these times I’m reminded of the implications of body appraisal.
Bodies.
Queer bodies.
Black and brown queer bodies.
Black and brown queer bodies appraised to be unworthy of life.
Deemed as disposable bodies by some.
It is in these moments when I scream inside. As I remember every time a white person has asked me how their fat activism or their work focused on “health” can increase POC membership.
Survival. Healing. Living. Liberation. These are what I’m invested in.
This is what I am fighting for.
This is my work.
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