On O'Shae, Renaissance, Homophobia, Anti-Blackness, and the Intersection Where They Touch

Trigger warning: homophobia, anti-Blackness, hate crimes.

O'Shae Sibley stopped for gas at a gas station with friends. He exited the car to dance to Beyoncé's Renaissance, playing in their car. O'Shae Sibley and his friends were accosted by a group of men who "told them to stop dancing" and started using homophobic slurs. During the attack, Sibley and Otis Pena, a best friend of Sibley's, responded to the slurs used by the other men: "Stop saying that. There is nothing wrong with being gay."

During the confrontation, one of the men stabbed Sibley. O'Shae was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.

Otis, who tried to stop O'Shae's bleeding after the stabbing, posted a video to Facebook following his friend's death: "They murdered him because he's gay, because he stood up for his friends. His name was O'Shae, and you all killed him. You all murdered him right in front of me."

O'Shae just wanted to dance.

O'Shae was just living his joy.

But evidently, you're just not allowed to dance, be joyful, and express yourself while Black and gay.

And now O'Shae's life is over, and the just things that need to happen to avenge his unnecessary murder will likely not happen.

O'Shae just wanted to live.

Black queer people just want to live, yet we receive so much violence and homophobia and hate from inside and outside Black communities with such unrelenting torrential force that we drown in the waters generated by the spittle attached to the slurs and...

It shouldn't be this hard to just be, y'all.

It's just too damn hard.

[Image description: An image of O'Shae Sibley, a young Black man, dancing with a grouping of dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. O'Shae is at the forefront of the image, wearing a yellow sleeveless shirt and black pants. He is dancing, laughing, looking into the distance. His body language exudes joy.]