Frank Ocean reacts to the Orlando shooting in a moving letter: 'Many hate us and wish we didn't exist'

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Singer Frank Ocean posted a moving, personal reflection to his Tumblr page on Tuesday — taking on an array of subjects, including the Orlando mass shooting and the controversy over North Carolina's transgender bathroom laws, while confronting homophobia and transphobia at large. 

In his extended post, Ocean discussed the violence of the Orlando massacre in the context of global hate crimes and intolerance toward the LGBT community.

"Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist," Ocean wrote. "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?"

Confronting the violence of the Orlando shooting — an attack that killed 49 people and injured 53 more at a gay nightclub on June 12 — the 28-year-old singer penned a sorrowful reaction that related the shooting to other instances of intolerance in his life. 

"I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month," he wrote. "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."

Read Ocean's full note on his website.

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