We need to disarm the hate
By Jumaane Williams
Three years ago June 12,
Omar Mateen entered the
Pulse nightclub in Orlando,
Florida, and killed 49 people
as they celebrated, many
of them members of the
LGBTQ community in the
midst of Pride month. Less
than a year ago, 11 Jewish
worshippers were killed in a
Pennsylvania synagogue. Just
under three months ago, a
gunman murdered 51 at their
mosque in Christchurch, New
Zealand.
Mass shootings are a plague,
in our country and around
the world, but the infection
is not random - it is targeted.
Those targets are being placed
on the most marginalized
communities in our society,
and as we mark the anniversary
of the tragedy at Pulse and
the triumph at Stonewall 50
years ago, it is time to confront
gun violence as an issue of
civil and human rights which
acutely threatens the LGBTQ
community.
Hate crimes, bias-motivated
violence, have risen sharply
in recent years, with the FBI
finding a 17 percent increase
from 2016 to 2017. Of those
measured, more than 17
percent of attacks were
targeted because of sexual
orientation or gender identity.
Transgender women of color
are being killed in hate crimes
at higher rates than nearly any
other group of people in this
country. This violence is not all
in mass shootings like Pulse,
but in personalized prejudice
that leads to individual
attacks that break hearts,
but not news. Much of this
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams marching in the June 8 Brooklyn LGBTQ Pride Parade. Photo by Donna Aceto
violence involves a weapon,
and while LGBTQ individuals
are significantly less likely to
use a gun themselves than the
general population, they are
more likely to face the violence
that comes from our cultural
obsession with firearms.
Often included in the
statistics but left out of the
conversation around gun
violence are the 20,000
suicides by gunshot each year
in America. LGBTQ individuals
attempt suicide at significantly
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
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10 Caribbean Life, July 5—July 11, 2019 BQ
higher rates than the general
population, though with many
suffering in silence data can
be difficult to collect in this
area. These tragic deaths come
as a result of the resources
our system fails to provide and
the hatred our society keeps
in abundant supply. Here,
the mental health crisis and
failures to secure and expand
LGBTQ rights trigger tragedy
with the accessibility of guns
in our country.
Confronting the gun
violence epidemic and the hate
that fuels it are inextricably
linked. Broadly, gun violence
is driven along two tracks -
supply and demand. The supply
is the amount of guns entering
communities - an area where
the federal government is firmly
committed to inaction, but state
by state some progress is being
made. Civil rights groups have
continued to demand change,
including Gays Against Guns,
who have increased calls for
common sense gun reforms,
but conservative governance
on the federal level makes
it as opposed to gun safety
legislation as it is to antidiscrimination
laws.
The demand refers to
the penchant for violence
in communities - which, in
reference to attacks on the
LGBTQ community, is an issue
of festering bigotry that leads
to open attacks. Legislation
and government alone will not
solve this, although increases
in funding for and operations
of programs and people on the
ground are essential. It is also
an issue of solidarity. When
attacks are launched against
the marginalized - because
of gender, sexual orientation,
race, religion, and more,
we have an intersectional
obligation to stand together
in condemnation of hate
and support of each others’
communities.
You cannot hate neatly, and
so we all must come together,
all historically marginalized
communities, to defend each
other - because if they come for
one in the morning, they come
for the rest at night. We need
to show our city and nation
that neither hate nor fear is
welcome here, and that we
stand united against bigotry in
all its forms -because of race,
color, creed, or community,
because of who you worship
or who you love. This month,
as we celebrate Pride and
mourn Pulse, we are called to
increase our unified efforts to
combat the prejudice and the
plague that spreads with each
shooting.
OP-ED
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