Music

Frank Ocean writes powerful statement on Orlando shootings

by Jeremy Mersereau

Inflamed by the recent tragedy in Orlando, R&B artist Frank Ocean has written a moving statement on his personal Tumblr, expressing his anger at the prejudice and violence members of the LGBTQ community experience daily, while denouncing those who use God to justify their hatred.

The singer, who came out publicly in an open letter he published on Tumblr back in 2012, writes about painful personal experiences he’s endured throughout his life. “Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist,” Ocean writes, citing his pastor and his own father’s intolerance and homophobia. “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,” says the singer, noting that was the last afternoon he saw his father.

Ocean directly references Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter who left 49 dead and 53 wounded in the Pulse nightclub shooting on June 12th. Mateen was also seen frequenting the club and alleged to be a regular user of gay dating apps. “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.”

The musician wonders about the mental and spiritual state of those who “don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year.” In one of the most powerful passages, he asks “Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?”

Read Ocean’s statement in full 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?