The Pulse Nightclub Shooting: Connecting Militarism, Neoliberalism, and Multiculturalism to Understand Violence

Abstract

The shooting that left 49 people dead and 53 people injured at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida shined an international spotlight on the violent oppression of LGBTQ+ people. The significant loss of human life, the complex intersections of identity, and the horrific details of the crime brought numerous issues affecting the lives of LGBTQ+ people into public discourse. This essay contextualizes the narratives surrounding Pulse with a political economic analysis of the massacre, its antecedents, and its aftermaths. Advancing an anthropological perspective, I position the Pulse massacre at the nexus of militarism, neoliberalism, and multiculturalism and offer a critical lens for understanding the policies, practices, and processes imbricated in shooting. Broadly, this involves addressing issues of U.S. capitalist imperialism in the Middle East, neocolonialism in Puerto Rico, and diversity/inclusion in gay space.

There’s No Such Thing as a Gay Bar: Co-Sexuality and the Neoliberal Branding of Queer Spaces

“…In response, many gay bars in large metropolitan cities have employed neoliberal strategies to remain financially viable and culturally relevant (e.g., Hartless, 2019; Mattson, 2014). Accordingly, Kalish Blair (2016) denoted how gay bars, such as Pulse Nightclub, adopt neoliberal strategies where diverse groups are given specific nights (e.g., Latin night or lesbian night). Other strategies such as drag brunch, intended to make drag performance more accessible to heterosexual audiences, have become major sources of income (Siddons, 2019).…”

Untitled

“…According to Duggan (2003), Reagan used neoliberalism as a way to push against the former Keynesian policies, like the New Deal, to lessen the government's responsibility in social welfare programs while cutting taxes for the rich and restructuring the K-20 education system from a public to a private good. Neoliberalism seeks to uphold capitalism through interlocking systems of oppression, highlighting the ableist, classist, cis-heteronormative, and white supremacist underpinnings of our systems (Duggan, 2003;Kalish Blair, 2016;Museus & LePeau, 2019). Maher and Aquanno (2018) identified how U.S. education systems are organized and suggested that it is "not merely a state policy paradigm or corporate asset portfolio, but rather a trend in the institutional organization of power" (p. 33); this speaks to the ways hegemonic socialization impacts and effects neoliberalism within higher education institutions.…”

Omar Mateen as US citizen, not foreign threat: Homonationalism and LGBTQ online representations of the Pulse nightclub shooting

“…To be sure, discussion of the USA generally appeared very little throughout the articles. During the same 911 phone call as Mateen's “pledged allegiance” statement, he repeatedly called for an end to US-initiated bombings, telling the negotiator “you need to stop the US air strikes” and “you have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq, they are killing a lot of innocent people,” among other similar statements (Brennan, 2016; Kalish Blair, 2016).…”

“…On 12 June 2016, Omar Mateen, a US citizen born in New Hyde Park, New York, and living in Fort Pierce, Florida, killed 49 people in Orlando at a gay nightclub, Pulse, on “Latin night” (Kalish Blair, 2016; Koons, 2017; Lawrence, 2016). Still, as these quotations from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reflect, Mateen was frequently positioned in opposition to US norms, rather than a product of them, including by those on the US political left.…”

“…Among the critical analyses that have pointed to homonationalism, Calafell (2017: 198) has argued that “the intimate relationship between US imperialism and homonationalism should be implicated in any discussion of the Orlando murders.” Other critiques have similarly situated the shooting in relation to systemic transnational violence, as Halberstam (2016: n.p.) has pointed to “the urgent need to confront state violence” and Kalish Blair (2016: 111) has emphasized the importance of understanding “long-standing, structural violence, fused at the nexus of militarism, US imperialism, and neoliberal multiculturalism.” These critical analyses have also addressed media representations of Mateen; for instance, Cram (2016: 148) has described these depictions as advancing “tropes of the ‘backwards homophobic Muslim,’” while Chávez (2016: 160–161) has critiqued media discourse of Mateen for reinforcing beliefs that “homophobia and transphobia are worse in communities of color,” which has helped to justify the targeting of those communities in a variety of ways (Meyer, 2016).…”