Faustina Agolley was about to march in the Los Angeles’ Pride parade on Sunday morning when she heard of the horrific attack in Orlando.
“I had this feeling of complete disbelief and all of the sudden it tainted the experience of being at the Pride,” she tells SBS.
It’s Pride Month in the US and celebrations of everything LGBTQIA+ have been taking place throughout the country. They were significantly marred however, after 50 people were killed and a further 50 left injured after a gunman opened fire inside of a gay Orlando nightclub.
The horrific events led many to abandon their plans to attend the march in Los Angeles, but those who did were resolute in their decision to support and celebrate gay rights.
Faustina was attending on behalf of Comcast NBCUniversal and says she was roused to participate after a colleague noted that despite being “a somber morning as we learn of everything happening in Orlando, the best way to fight terrorism is to show up”.
She says, “This is the whole reason why we march and why there’s a pride parade is because for the longest time we’ve been treated as second class citizens or unworthy so it’s important to show up, it’s important to go out and it’s shame that other [people] who found out about [the attacks] overnight didn’t show.
“There’s nothing worse than igniting fear among people and I think fear is the greatest enemy. The moment we can empower ourselves, to know that we can truly all get along as a society as a human race, the better we become."
The victims of the mass shooting, which is the deadliest in US history, and their families were remembered. People held up signs that read, "We love you Orlando" and Faustina says, "we paid our respects with a few moments of silence and then headed out there, it was a moment of solidarity.”
Earlier in the day, police had found a car headed to the parade loaded with weapons and explosives-making material that further raised the sense of alarm. Some marches also let of poppers throughout the day that sounded like gunshots and left many on edge.
A few protesters were also out, but Faustina says “people were cheering even louder to drown out any kind of noise they were making which was awesome and you felt strength in numbers.
“It’s scary to see people that want to hate you so much, I think that that’s quite frightening, but to know that you have other people around you who accept you and won’t stand for that and also are trying to be compassionate to these people because they clearly are ignorant and don’t understand you.”
While the TV star says it was "wonderful" to attend the event, "you couldn’t help but think about the people in Orlando and eventually the weight of the news got onto me and once we finished the parade, I just wanted to leave, I wanted to go."
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