As I write this, an uneasy dawn is breaking over Washington DC. I have barely slept a wink since 50 people were shot dead and many others injured at Sunday’s shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Notice, how I didn’t say 50 gays were killed in a gay night club.
No, it’s not because I’m ashamed of being gay. Anyone who knows me would tell you that I wear my sexuality on my sleeve. But I purposely framed my sentence that way to reiterate that “gay” people are people and a “gay” nightclub is a nightclub.
What happened to those people could have easily happened to anyone belonging to any “special interest group”. And the truth is, everyone belongs to one.
If you are not gay, you are probably Dalit or Black or Hispanic or homeless or someone fighting against unequal pay! It is this cross-sectionality and integrated approach to dealing with hate crimes that brought me here to Washington DC in the first place.
Last evening I was at Dupont circle. I saw people come together and build little shrines with cards and candles and pray for the departed.
I saw people. Just people.
Homosexual, heterosexual, asexual, rich, poor. Just people. Some solemn, some somber, some teary-eyed. But what I also saw was this amazing resolve to prevail over bigotry and hate.
June is Pride month in the US. In fact, I attended the Pride briefly here in Washington last evening. It was an act of defiance! Gay people everywhere are shaken by the shocking cruelty of what transpired at Pulse. But they haven’t missed a beat and have emerged stronger from this mindless massacre.
I’m going to leave religion aside but only with the note that I also know that true Christians would condemn how the Westborough Baptist Church celebrated the slayings.
Just as I know that the average Hindu couldn’t care less about who I sleep with and won’t chase me with a trident!
If you enjoy killing, you suffer from blood-lust. You are not Muslim or Christian or Hindu.
Gay rights activists have been killed in clubs, in cafes, in their offices and on busy streets in broad daylight across the world. Their killers have used guns, machetes, bombs and often even their bare hands.
Remember how ISIS dropped gay men head first from the roofs of high buildings in North Africa?
Some people blame guns. I blame the killer. People, both straight and gay, are killed because people with hate in their heart kill them.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support the so called “gun culture”. I stand opposed to it. I find it crazy that it is so easy to procure guns that lead to tragedy after tragedy and scores of dead bodies of innocent victims.
I’m just placing the responsibility where it belongs. Killings are a bit like rape. A rape doesn’t take place because of what the survivor wears or because the rapist has easy access to condoms or watches porn. Rape happens because rapists rape.
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Similarly, people aren’t killed because they are gay or because guns are easily available. They are killed because a person full of hate chose to pull the damn trigger.
I’m going to be here in the US for a few weeks and I will keep you posted on how people are coping. In the meantime, please do me a favour. Refrain from spreading further hate.
The last thing I want is for some poor kid to get killed because he practices the same religion as the killer in the Orlando shooting. Hats off to President Obama for calling this what it actually is, a terror attack. And Americans have been known to deal with that very efficiently.
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