I 

attended my sister’s high 
school graduation on Sunday, 
June 12, and listened to 

speeches 
on 

hope 
and 

positive societal 
change 
in 
a 

crowd 
filled 

with many about to begin their adult 
lives.

In the same 24 hours, the 

United States suffered its largest 
mass shooting in history with a 
homophobic hate crime resulting in 
the loss of 50 lives and the injury of 
53 others at the Pulse, a gay nightclub 
in Orlando that was filled with many 
enjoying Latin Night. In the same 48 
hours, singer Christina Grimmie was 
shot while meeting fans after her 
concert in Orlando.

What happened to Christina 

Grimmie and what happened with 
the homophobic killings in Pulse 
have caused a sense of complete 
frustration — my heart is aching 
that these tragedies are so common. 
Every single day horrific events are 
occurring — the disgusting truth is 
that, for many of us, there is a high 
chance we will not know about 
them if the lives impacted are not 
valued by mainstream media, do not 
impact members of our immediate 
communities or do not impact those 
in our lives. We must recognize this 
as a fault, not try to justify it and take 
active steps to remedy it by being 
proactive consumers of information.

After these two tragedies, many 

have been sending their thoughts 
and 
prayers. 
But 
while 
some 

might find that comforting, what 
substantive action will follow and 
be implemented to make sure we, 
as a society, are doing everything 
we can to prevent gun violence and 
to protect those in the LGBTQIA+ 
community? 

For starters, each of us must do 

our part of recognizing the beliefs 
and behaviors that stem from 
homophobia and hatred in our own 
communities — an example being one 
ignoring the overlap of LGBTQIA+ , 
racial and religious identities. Audre 
Lorde once said, “Within the lesbian 
community I am Black, and within 
the Black community I am a lesbian. 
Any attack against Black people is a 

lesbian and gay issue, because I and 
thousands of other Black women are 
part of the lesbian community. Any 
attack against lesbians and gays is 
a Black issue, because thousands of 
lesbians and gay men are Black.” If we 
play a part in the creation of binaries 
— making it seem as if these identities 
are mutually exclusive — we are 
responsible for causing many to be 
silent when they otherwise would 
be steadfast in their solidarity. If we 
recognize the rooted problems in our 
communities that oppress members 
within and outside our communities, 
we have a responsibility to do what 
we can to eradicate it if we can do 
so without putting our physical, 
emotional and mental safety at risk. 
How could we live with ourselves if 
we could and did not?

While our LGBTQIA+ brothers 

and sisters are being killed, how 
can we genuinely call ourselves 
lovers of humanity if we’re staying 
silent? When another life is lost and 
yet again nothing changes for gun 
control, how can we say we really 
want to put an end to shootings if 
we’re staying silent?

These feelings — these moments 

of complete and utter shock over how 
cruel mankind can be — will never go 
away. We will unfortunately always 
find moments of genuine beauty 
and clarity in our lives being put to 
an end when suddenly we feel our 
hearts breaking and find ourselves 
staring at a news headline wanting to 
scream. I can’t pretend that this pain 
is temporary and that if we all held 
hands it would stop. It’s what we feel 
we can do with these feelings that 
matters and lessens the frequency 
of deaths and injustice motivated by 
hate.

“I am only one, but I am still one. I 

cannot do everything, but still I can 
do something. And because I cannot 
do everything I will not refuse to 
do the something that I can do,” 
the student speaker at Salem High 
School’s graduation said, quoting 
Helen Keller to a graduating class of 
more than 1,000. 

Afterward, 
I 
spoke 
with 
a 

graduating senior, Patricia Freitag, in 
the crowd.

“I’m livid,” she told me. “I’m really 

angry at how this country has let 

things get this far, how I have stood 
by and mourned for the families but 
never actively done something.”

We are all one, but together, we 

are all bodies of change and a future 
that doesn’t have to learn about 
yet another mass killing, another 
injustice, another act of hate every 
single day.

“The 
first 
step 
is 
bringing 

awareness,” Freitag said. “People say 
that there’s no point in retweeting 
things, but look at the huge platform 
it’s given younger generations — a 
platform that others cannot ignore 
and goes worldwide. There’s also 
petitioning, signing and writing to your 
representatives and local governments, 
which many seem to ignore because 
they believe one signature or one call 
is too small. But if everyone whose 
signature was so minuscule made 
that small dent, collectively we could 
make one of the largest impacts our 
generation has ever seen.” 

My heart goes out to all who lost 

loved ones as a result of homophobic 
mass shooting in Orlando — to those 
who have been severely traumatized 
and impacted by the aftermath. 
My heart goes out to those in the 
LGBTQIA+ community who are in the 
closet and couldn’t publicly grieve, seek 
comfort from their loved ones or solace 
from their friends and who were once 
again forced to suffer through pain and 
heartbreak alone. My heart goes out to 
to the Muslims who may experience 
Islamophobia as a result of this — 
especially those at the intersection of 
the LGBTQIA+ and Muslim identity. 
My heart goes out to to the family and 
loved ones of Christina Grimmie, to 
her big brother who had to watch his 
little sister die and her fans who saw 
someone they loved shot right before 
their eyes.

To those of you who are able, who 

are feeling a hundred emotions at 
once and who want to genuinely help 
prevent things like this in the future, 
please speak up and do what you can 
when you hear or see hate. People’s 
lives — their hopes, dreams and loved 
ones — are depending on it. I am still 
only one, and so are you, but together 
we’ll make a powerful many.

—Nadia Karizat can be reached 

at nkarizat@umich.edu.

5
OPINION

Thursday, June 16, 2016

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

I am still one

NADIA 
KARIZAT

Ending the cycle

Like we do after every other 

tragedy, every other mass shooting 
(this past Saturday’s being the 176th 
mass shooting this year alone, and 
the most fatal in American history 
save the mass slaughters of Native 
Americans), we will first mourn. 
We’re told by news outlets that 50 
people died and even more were 
injured in a shooting at an LGBT 
nightclub in Orlando, and that 26 
kindergarten students and faculty 
were shot dead in Newtown. People 
will reprimand those who are 
angered in Facebook threads on news 
articles, telling them to be human 
and mourn first before making it 
a political issue. Your Facebook 
friends and Twitter followers will 
share articles about the tragedy and 
post heartfelt prayers, and these 
depressing posts will dominate your 
news feed.

Next, it’s time for the outrage. 

We are told who the shooter is, 
their history and relationships are 
revealed and their face is plastered 
on articles and television reports 
from The New York Times and 
CNN. People will get in fights on the 
Internet over what went wrong. If 
the perpetrator is revealed to have 
had ties to ISIS or another extremist 
group, there’s chatter about Islam 
being poison and all Muslims being 
terrorists, and people will either 
vehemently agree or disagree. Some 
people will bring up mental health, 
while others will discuss gun control. 
Invariably, there will be unbridled 
anger on the Internet. Other than the 
occasional peacemaker, mourning 
will have been forgotten by now. 
Instead of remembering the victims, 
we will have given attention to the 
perpetrator — exactly what this 
person wanted.

Then, it’s time to make a move in 

the game of politics. Most politicians 
will release messages that express 
sentiments of sadness and immense 
human loss, some will be outraged 
and swear to improve the gun 
control laws in our country, some 
will angrily talk about finally getting 
rid of radical groups and terrorism 
and some will pat themselves on the 
back even when the situation calls for 
grief. If it’s an election year, everyone 
has to be on their best, most political 
and, dare I say it, presidential 
behavior. Most of the statements 
they make are supposed to represent 
our best interests, our own personal 
desires for a call for action, whatever 
this action may be. The optimistic 

parts of us all hope that maybe this 
time there will be a huge change 
that stops a tragedy like this from 
happening again. The anger turns 
into petitions and opinion pieces — 
much like this one.

That’s the problem. It stops there. 

Too soon, these precious lives lost 
will be forgotten. Too soon, we’ll be 
back to life as we know it, wrapped 
up in our own little worlds. Too 
soon, the same politicians who 
expressed outrage and sadness and 
a need for action will stop talking 
about the tragedy, let alone doing 
something about it. But it’s not just 
the politicians who don’t remain 
accountable — none of us do. We 
are the ones electing these people. 
We are the ones exuding racism, 
sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, 
transphobia and every other phobia 
out there. We are the ones who 
embrace freedom but only ascribe 
it to people selectively. Going back 
to the status quo of hypocrisy and 
hidden malice toward the “other” 
sends a message to those looking to 
harm innocents that they have an 
opening and that they can easily get 
away with it because we’re distracted 
by our fears, our prejudices and 
our melodrama of a presidential 
campaign. Is that the way we want 
to live?

I’ve been impacted enough by 

my own hidden prejudices, even if 
only marginally, due to my many 
privileged identities; I’ve been called 
names because of my Indian origin 
— including one several years ago 
that was said with the mistaken 
assumption that I’m Muslim — and 
I’ve been told overtly that I can’t 
code well just because I’m a woman. 
My acquaintances and friends in the 
LGBTQ community are afraid that 
our country is taking a step back from 
same-sex marriage legality due to one 
person’s hateful crime, and they are 
terrified of copycat attacks and other 
repercussions. My Muslim-American 
acquaintances and friends are afraid 
that they will be even less welcome 
in their homes than before, maybe 
even dangerously so. When we make 
our own residents feel unsafe and 
discriminated against based on their 
own identities, how can we move on 
to actually take action when people do 
disgusting, sad things like this?

Talk is cheap. If we want to 

actually be progressive, we need to 
actually make a move. Let’s live up 
to the emotions we’re feeling about 
this horrific tragedy. Let’s start by 

educating ourselves on social justice 
and making this a truly equal playing 
field for all. Let’s start by getting rid of 
the “phobias” mentioned earlier that 
fester in our cities and towns. Let’s 
start by taking charge of the ideas and 
attitudes we spew, intentionally or not, 

to those who have different identities 
than we do. And let’s hold not only the 
perpetrators but also ourselves and 
others accountable when tragedies 
like Saturday night happen, at all 
levels — interpersonal, community, 
state, national and international. I’m 

absolutely fed up with this. And I hope 
you’re all just as fed up as I am, and that 
you will consider this a desperate plea 
for action and accountability.

—Anisha Sudarshan 

is an LSA senior.

ANISHA SUDARSHAN | OP-ED

