We Are Firewood

On 12th June 2016, the largest hate crime in recent history took place in an LGBT+ nightclub in Orlando, USA. The attack claimed the most lives of any mass shooting in the entirety of US history, with 49 people shot dead.

It was a tragedy. Musical artists released tributes; the entire Tony's ceremony the next night was dedicated to the victims. But even then, and now as well, the political undertones of world media stain the memorial of the attack and those who lost their lives to hate one year ago today.

After the Pulse massacre, US media faced a dilemma. Because the acts were carried out by a man who declared himself to be Muslim.

If there's one thing the good and fair God-fearing white American hates, it's a Muslim terrorist - but how to mourn the deaths of people they hated also as much...?

So what the media - not just in the US, but around the world - tried to do was to obscure the facts of the tragedy. The deaths were instantly political, simply because of why they were killed. The fact that every victim was a member of the LGBT+ community was obscured, barely mentioned if possible. The majority of the victims were Latinx or black, but where did you see that reported? All of the discussion moved away from What can we do to make the LGBT+ community feel safe? and right into What can we do to get rid of Muslims?

To even discuss and commemorate Pulse is to prepare yourself internally for the political onslaught about to come. Will the person I'm talking to blame this on Islam? Will I have to explain how Islam is not homophobic, one man was? Will they start talking about how he was probably a closeted homosexual himself? Will I have to go into all of the problems with this entire trope, why it's just a way for other heterosexual people to distance themselves from guilt? Will they try to tell me more guns would have helped? Or that we shouldn't remember them as being LGBT+ and PoC because that's not relevant, it's all hate we should eliminate?

But the fact of it is simply this: a man went into a space specifically designed to be safe for the LGBT+ community, and he killed 49 people and injured dozens more because he hated them for who they were.

Because they were queer, and many, many people continue to hate that. If you ever think that homophobia is over, or political correctness needs to calm down ("you guys already have equal marriage, gees...") and snowflakes need to toughen up, imagine being told that within a year of 49 members of your community being murdered because that is who they were.

If you've read Each Separate Dying Ember, and you're reading this now, it probably feels a little familiar.

In Dying Ember, a south Asian boy is killed because he is gay. As he dies, the slur FAG is carved onto his forehead. That is the catalyst I mentioned in this earlier post, the event which turns the entire story on its head. Overwhelmed with how powerless he feels, and with a mixture of terror for his own life and a sudden realisation of his own privilege, the white gay North writes FAG on his own head in marker pen, and begins - in a state of dissociation - a protest outside the Enforcement (police) head-quarters. The protest quickly gains traction, and the course of the story is skewed along a new path, mourning and bringing justice to a murdered brown LGBT+ boy, a boy who otherwise would have been forgotten.

I've included a (slightly abridged) transcription of North's speech below, because it says everything I need:

Click to enlarge & read

Here's the thing. The deaths of the Pulse shooting victims aren't the only thing that's inherently political, whether they like it or not - the lives of all LGBT+ and PoC people are. For some of us, politics isn't a choice. People say to me, "I support my gay friends but I don't agree with the local council flying a rainbow flag during Pride". People say, "You can be neutral when it comes to big issues; you're allowed not to have an opinion."

But... When I exist, I am at risk. And I'm white, living in Britain. I'm at less risk than most of the LGBT+ population. And if you aren't going to stand up for me when I am threatened, that inherently means that you are willing to potentially let me die, rather than interfere with your beliefs. Like North says, we all have free speech - you can use slurs, be they racial or sexual or ableist; you can "disagree with" being gay - but to speak against a group is to inherently threaten its individuals. The Pulse shooting proved that for us, just as Ezek's death in the book proves it to the other characters. And to not speak?

That's holding your hands up and going, "Yep, you carry on with that murder, I'm just gonna' groom my personal beliefs in this safe little bubble..."

I get the need to shut off from the world and forget all the bad sometimes. But some of us don't have a safe little bubble to retreat into. A rich straight able-bodied white person in Britain or the US can shut off the horrible things that happen to minorities when they get upset about them. For some of us, there's going to be a point when we're the ones on the line. And what we do is reach out a hand and ask for help. If you put your earplugs in and raise your magazine in front of your face while we drown, I hope you can understand my chagrin.

So that's the angry part. That's the *political* part.

Because I have another thing to say about Dying Ember and the Pulse shooting: I didn't actually write Ezek's death and the Firewood speech about it.

It wasn't written to commemorate the victims of Pulse, though in July 2016 I changed the dedication and afterword of the book, and modified the Firewood speech slightly. But it was actually written shortly after the murder of Michael Brown, and the suicide of Leelah Alcorn.

Michael Brown was an unarmed black boy killed by a police officer who also had ties to the KKK, who was never brought to justice for it. Leelah Alcorn was a transgender girl who was abused by her Christian family and community, who blamed them in her suicide note and begged the world to change so that in future, no more LGBT+ teens would have to suffer as she did.

After what becomes known as the Firewood riots, Daneel, North, and several others make repeated references to a "list of names" - of those murdered because of their colour, sexuality, or gender identity; of those whose killers were never brought to justice, whom the media demonised in order to justify their deaths. As if a black boy who might have robbed a store when he was twelve deserved death more or less than a white man who repeatedly raped girls on his campus. As if bad grades and no intention of attending further education mean it was okay for a police officer to hunt and kill them.

The afterword of Dying Ember consists of a list of such victims, from the end 2012 to mid-2016. It's not all of them, but it's the ones I could find.

Click to enlarge & read

If you dared to cry for the death of Poussey in Orange is the New Black, or agree that Ezekiel's murder was unfair, look at these names. Read them. Look them up, and learn about their lives and stories.
And go and make some damn change.

The final part of this memorial post is a project I thought about for a long time, but was never actually brave enough to try and pull off.
For the past month, I've tried.

North York

Atarah Dayal

Clay Nicholson

Daneel Thulani Baheleh

Garnet Denzel

Junayd Gisemba Yar'Adua

Vadik Nagarkar

These are portraits of the LGBT+ characters within Each Separate Dying Ember. They show their diversity, and their pride. I plan to talk a little more about the experience of creating them later; for now, they stand by themselves as memorial. It's not all the characters; each portrait took 4-6 hours, and through university exams I just didn't have the time for the most minor characters, or those whose sexualities is ambiguous, including Brooke and Kiah.

Read the names above. Look at their faces. Spend today mourning the victims of discrimination worldwide, and specifically the Pulse victims.
Spend tomorrow making sure this doesn't happen again.