Forum discusses aftermath of Pulse

On Tuesday night, UF President Kent Fuchs said the university needs to embrace diversity in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

About 300 UF students and Gainesville residents attended the Pugh Hall event After Orlando: Managing Fears and Welcoming Diversity. UF brought in three panelists to address the issues of fear, diversity and coexisting following the June attack that killed 49 people.

Fuchs opened the forum by calling for those gathered to practice tolerance and not close themselves off to what is happening around them.

“With intolerance on rise nationally,” he said, “my hope is that this university, that the city of Gainesville, will be an ever-brightening showcase for those benefits of inclusion.”

He told the audience the university was the perfect place to have the conversation before the three panel members and a moderator took the stage.

Terry Fleming, a co-president of the Pride Community Center of North Central Florida, described himself as a cisgender gay man with an unfortunate resemblance to Walter White.

He said the U.S. is stronger as a nation when citizens welcome what makes others unique.

“I for one am not happy with the language that we should ‘tolerate diversity,’” he said. “We should celebrate diversity.”

Rasha Mubarak, an Orlando resident and the regional coordinator for the Council of American-Islamic Relations of Florida, said she woke up at 5 a.m. on the day of the Pulse nightclub shooting for morning prayer.

By mid-morning, her phone was ringing constantly, and she could hear sirens in the background as she worked downtown, she said.

“You could see (the) number of the death toll go up, and so did my heart rate,” she said.

As they spoke, Merel Schalkwijk, an international student from the Netherlands, listened from the staircase study pod.

“I only heard about the Orlando shooting from abroad,” the 22-year-old UF international studies junior said. “It was interesting to hear it related to other problems in society.”