Silence=Death

I remember like it was yesterday, and indeed it was yesterday… I remember hearing about Pulse night club. I remember hearing from my dad how he was up all night rife with intrusive thoughts about my safety for days later. I remember how upset I was that a safe space for queer people was invaded by a gunman and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more. I remember. I remember because it was the exact story that played out yesterday.

Déjà vu about mass shootings of fellow queer people… What a feeling. What a feeling to get familiar with something like this. I don’t want this for my community and yet I see quite clearly how we get to relive this day every so often. Media outlets spewing anti-queer rhetoric about “trans predators," “evil drag queen story hours," and “gay men committing molestation” how can anyone be surprised that someone goes out and commits homeric violence like this? Was it not just a matter of time? 

Club Q was supposed to be a safe space for queer people and yet it was defiled. At least 5 were killed in Colorado Springs, and 19 more shot. On the eve of Trans Day of Remembrance, a day observed in honor of the lives of trans people lost to anti-trans violence and hatred. The cruelest of timing. My heart breaks for them and their families.

I painted late into the night finishing this piece in one sitting yesterday. Inspired by Avram Finkelstein’s iconic poster,  Silence=Death, a work designed as an urgent response to the AIDS epidemic. The pink triangle originally was the mark of homosexuals sent to concentration camps and today has become a reclaimed symbol of the queer community and a rallying cry. Condolences without action are, at the end of the day, meaningless. Please do not tolerate anti-queer sentiments at home, on social media, or on your news channel. Anti-queer ideology is a disease that continues to spread rampantly. Events like this shooting insidiously inspire more to inflict harm against queer bodies. Do not be silent for I, and so many others, dread the day of having to remember this all again and again and again.