The America We Must Become

We have and we have not been here before.

The news that our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community in Orlando were singled out and targeted for a hate crime of unimaginable proportions fills us with an intense sadness and a deep heartbreak. That the attack happened on Latin night at the Pulse nightclub reminds us of the many layers of hate experienced by communities of color. That this horrific crime came a year after the Supreme Court recognized the national right to same-sex marriage, and amidst global celebrations of gay Pride month, adds another layer of grief. That this hate crime happened a year after nine Black people were murdered in a church in Charleston, South Carolina--targeted simply for being alive and Black--deepens our pain, as we grapple with the reality that hate and violence continue to show up against communities who have been targets of violence and hatred for far too long and far too often.

Hate crimes are classified as a specific and unique type of crime for a reason. Hate crimes are designed to be different, as their perpetrators consciously try to attack individuals solely because of a group they represent. A hate crime is someone attempting to say to a certain group that you don't belong in our larger family. Hate crimes are an attempt to claim to an entire group that they are categorically and fundamentally different. In their attempt to send a message about an entire group, they try to deny the humanity of individuals.

We have to reject every part of those beliefs with everything we stand for as a country.

This attack is a deep injury to us all. While we grieve intensely and recognize unwaveringly that this is a hate crime against the LGBTQ community, we must also recognize that this is an attack on all of us. We are connected not only by our values, but by our shared humanity, so when you attack someone else, you are attacking all of us.

We must not let a tragedy of this proportion become a game of political football. We must claim the truth of what this attack signifies and resist political attempts to ignore the facts or let the victims stories, lives, and deaths become diluted in fresh rounds of political maneuvering.

Because the truth is that this is not the America we are. We must become the America we want to be. We must ask ourselves: Who do we want to be as a society? Our best aspirations should be that of a society that practices love and inclusion. The hateful bigotry and Othering being exposed during this Presidential election cycle is the opposite of our highest aspirations as an American society. We must not tolerate Islamophobic responses from our political or community leaders. We must not give into the fear of the Other that will be on its ugliest and most base display in the following days. We must not give into the false notion that this attack should be met with retribution and further violence. We must not give into any distortion of the reality that this was a hate crime targeted against the LGBTQ community.

This is not just rhetoric. The killings in Orlando remind us of the real life-and-death consequences of how we organize ourselves as a society, of how we govern, of what policies we enact, of who we deem worthy of protection and regard, of who and what we value.

When I give talks, I often hear from those struggling to reconcile different beliefs, whether cultural, religious, or social, with changing policies and practices. These conflicts are real. But we must hold diversity and even disagreement within the spirit of love and family. We must recognize there is diversity not just across race, ethnicity, political parties, and religion, but there is also diversity of beliefs within our own biological families. Simultaneously holding onto both at the same time--that we can disagree but that we can also still recognize our shared humanity-- is part of the "better angels of our nature" that Lincoln called for during the Civil War. This is the beloved community that MLK aspired to.

It is never wrong to love and it is never right to hate. We must rededicate ourselves to love as we resist those who seek to divide us. But these cannot be merely words--those words have to be tied to action, and those actions must be rooted in a set of shared values, including the recognition of every single person's humanity and life.

We must do more. When we say "enough," we must say it with conviction and meaning. We must turn our aspirations into a reality because we must, because we care, because we can.