Frank Ocean explains the power of ‘pride’ in the wake of Orlando

Frank Ocean has taken to Tumblr to publicly unpack his feelings over the recent shooting at Orlando LGBTQ nightclub Pulse, which took the lives of 49 people—most of them Latinxs and people of color—and left 53 injured.

The reclusive singer-songwriter—who publicly came out on the social-networking platform in 2012—writes about worldwide violence against queer and trans people, an early childhood brush with homophobia and transphobia, and why, in the face of all this continuing hatred and violence, we are driven to “say pride and express love for who and what we are.” In conclusion, he writes:

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 opening and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak.