Florida under Ron DeSantis Removed Pulse Night Club Shooting Memorial Crosswalk

Many people have expressed outrage over the removal of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting Memorial crosswalk in Orlando, but I find this reaction deeply ironic. It seems that more anger is directed at the disappearance of a painted crosswalk than at the actual mass murder of LGBTQ+ Latinos who tragically lost their lives during the 2016 Pulse Nightclub massacre.

What makes this outrage even more contradictory is how some progressive activists—who claim to support and defend the LGBTQ+ community—react when policies such as the so-called “Muslim travel ban” are proposed by Republicans or President Donald Trump. Yet the gunman responsible for the Pulse Nightclub shooting, Omar Mateen, was a radicalized Muslim extremist born in the United States (specifically in New York) to Afghan immigrant parents.

Whether or not one agrees with the existence of the LGBTQ+ pride crosswalk, the intensity of the backlash against its removal feels like performative outrage. Instead of addressing the deeper issues of radical extremism, and the safety of LGBTQ+ individuals, energy is being poured into defending a painted symbol on the ground. This makes it difficult to believe that many so-called progressives truly care about protecting the LGBTQ+ community beyond surface-level activism.