Former Odd Future member and R&B singer Frank Ocean logged onto Tumblr last night and posted an incredibly moving response to the Orlando shootings at Pulse, an LGBTQ nightclub, in which 49 people were killed. “I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month,” he writes. “I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us.”
As if that wasn’t enough to bring you to tears, Ocean continues, writing about a memory of his father lobbing a homophobic slur at a transgender waitress. “That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t,” he writes.
In the face of such violent hatred, to find hope for a better, more compassionate world requires a powerful exercise in optimism. Ocean is capable, even in such despairing times, of imagining what that might look like, were it possible. “I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here,” he wrote. “Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard.”
The singer had previously used Tumblr to come out as queer in 2012. He posted a text photo to his blog, telling a story about being 19 years old and falling in love with a friend who did not immediately reciprocate his feelings. “I don’t know what happens now, and that’s alrite,” he wrote, in what were meant to be liner notes for Channel Orange, his debut album as a solo artist. “I don’t have any secrets I need kept anymore. There’s probably some small shit still, but you know what I mean. I was never alone, as much as I felt like it… as much as I still do sometimes. I never was. I don’t think I ever could be.”
You can read the entirety of Ocean’s comments below:
“I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard it’s in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, I’m scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?”
