In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in American history, media reports identifying the 49 victims who died inside a gay nightclub in Orlando have too often failed to simultaneously acknowledge their race and LGBT status, Fordham Law Professor Tanya Hernandez said during an interview this week.
Gay Latinos accounted for the vast majority of people killed during a lone gunman’s attack on Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. Yet many media outlets have highlighted one identifying characteristic or the other among victims, thus reflecting their own implicit bias, Hernandez said.
“The victims were, in life, neither solely identified by their ethnicity nor the fact they were gay and lesbian. They were both,” said Hernandez, associate director and head of global and comparative law initiatives for Fordham Law’s Center on Race, Law & Justice.
“Their experience of discrimination is also intersectional,” the professor said. “That intersectional identity is one that made them especially available to being targeted. This population of gay men of color spends a lifetime particularly vulnerable to violence.”
Hernandez expressed concerns about media outlets reporting on “raceless” victims in order to create a greater sense of audience empathy for them. Whether intentional or not, removal of victims’ ethnic and racial identities can be viewed as an “act of racism,” the professor said.
Ninety percent of the Orlando mass shooting victims were Latino, and almost half were Puerto Rican, according to the New York Times.
“Having it solely be a story where the victims are gay or lesbian makes it an easier story to tell but it hides the fact that the violence this population experiences is a longstanding one, and not suddenly a development of our nation’s vulnerability to terrorism,” Hernandez said, referencing the discrimination gay people of color face on a daily basis.
Reports that the gunman massacred people in the name of ISIS further complicates how his actions are viewed and their larger meaning on society, the professor added. At this point, it’s not clear whether an allegiance to a terrorist organization—or something else entirely—spurred the gunman’s rampage. Numerous media reports have suggested the gunman might have been gay and visited Pulse prior to Sunday morning.
However, the mere mention of ISIS assures viewers they have already heard the story before: one of extremists “determined to eviscerate us.” This removes the potential to have dialogue about racism against people of color and violence against the LGBT community, Hernandez noted.
The lack of safe spaces for the LGBT community, particularly for gay men of color, makes a nightclub like Pulse a safe haven, but it also makes it susceptible to violence, the professor said. The club’s Latin night festivities on Saturday night, which attracted a large group of gay men of color, also made them vulnerable, she explained.
Passing hate crimes legislation is one way states like Florida can use the law to protect LGBT people of color, Hernandez said. Florida’s hate crime statute 775.085 (1)(a) includes sexual orientation among its bases for crimes committed out of prejudice.
Florida’s hate crime statute 877.19 also mandates the governor collect and disseminate data on “criminal acts that evidence prejudice based on race, religion, ethnicity, color, ancestry, sexual orientation, or national origin.” Sexual orientation constitutes the second largest basis for hate crimes in Florida behind only race-motivated hate crimes, the Florida Attorney General’s Office reports.
The 2016 electoral season is “a very scary time” for both Latinos and the LGBT community with the rise of hate speech in conjunction with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Hernandez said. Such speech raises the potential for increased violence against both groups.
“What we’re seeing in our electoral season unfortunately is a license and an invitation to express the most pejorative and non-inclusive approaches to civic life,” Hernandez said. The plethora of messages of hate “influences public perception about the humanity of individuals,” she added.
