Here are a couple of posts from my personal Facebook page from right after the Orlando shootings in which 49 LGBTQIA folks of color were murdered on Sunday at the Orlando Pulse nightclub.  I’m also mindful that tomorrow is the 1-year anniversary of the murder of 9 church folk at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.  May we remember them all, and re-commit ourselves to working every day for a new world that honors all life with dignity.

Waking up achy hearted this morning. I’m thinking of a Black friend who once told me, do the die in with us because one day it will be you. This attack at ‪#‎Pulse‬ feels like that, though I also hold with care that it was Latinx LGBTQ folk who were the target. But the queer part of me feels scared. Like anxious about holding my beloved’s hand while we wandered around Princeton Seminary last night watching the moon. Are we safe?

What kind of world do we want to build up? What kind? What kind are we willing to give our all for?

I’ll tell you this, though: If you want to “offer prayer” and you can’t even name the incident and you SERIOUSLY can’t even name who was the target of the attack — LGBTQ people of color, I mean come on now, can you say LGBTQ? — then you are participating in the same kind of erasure that kills us.

Be like the woman who led the prayer later (not the one earlier), who said LGBTQ even though her voice shook with it, I could tell she took a risk and she did it, I was waiting, would she? And she did. And that makes all the difference.
June 13, 5:53am