With Charlie Kirk’s death, America’s bias and bigotry are once again unmasked
Millions viewed Kirk as a hero who proudly uttered racial insults that most others were afraid to say aloud. To many Black Americans, he was a man who used his platform to push a twisted ideology.
The assassination of right-wing rabble-rouser Charlie Kirk has stirred up a toxic stew of anger and grief, self-righteousness and pity, helplessness and rage. Along the way, Kirk’s death has unmasked the idol America still worships: racism.
Kirk was a force of nature — a man of great charisma who was able to inspire young people to follow him, and to vote for Donald Trump. Millions, including the president and Vice President JD Vance, viewed Kirk as an American hero who proudly uttered the racial insults that most others were afraid to say aloud.
I can’t pretend to see Kirk that way. In my view, he was a man who used his rhetorical gifts to push a twisted ideology he branded as Christian conservatism.
As a Christian, I found Kirk’s opposition to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act to be biblically wrong and morally offensive. As a Black man, I found his statements about my people to be the outward representation of America’s racial dyslexia. After all, our country has always sought to portray itself as a place that is kind and just. Kirk showed us, both in life and in death, that America is anything but that.
As a man who fervently believed in free speech, Kirk said things that held up a mirror to America and showed us who we really are. He said that Harvard-educated Black women like Michelle Obama, Joy Reid, and Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t have the brain processing power to be taken seriously on their own, so they had to steal slots from white people.
He said Black residents of the nation’s largest cities were focused solely on plotting acts of violence against white people. He said moronic Black women use affirmative action to get jobs in customer service.
His views seemed to be drawn straight from racist tropes, but his words gave young, mostly white conservatives something to believe in.
Like most Black Americans, I ignored Kirk because, unlike the imaginary Black people he liked to conjure up, I was much too busy working twice as hard as my white counterparts, and getting half as much in return.
My own life experience told me that nearly everything Kirk said about Black people and other people of color was wrong. However, I believed he had the right not only to make his outlandish claims. He also had the right to live.
No one in America should be killed while exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. At the same time, no one should be celebrated for trafficking in racism, misogyny, and hate.
Kirk targeted everyone who was not like him, yet he claimed he was trying to leave a legacy of Christian faith. Perhaps that was his genuine desire, but he seemed to be more effective in promoting America’s primary belief system: racism.
No one in America should be killed while exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.
While gleefully delivering bigoted insults on his podcast and on college campuses, Kirk cofounded and grew the conservative youth group Turning Point USA. The organization had 900 college chapters and approximately 1,200 high school chapters at the time of Kirk’s death. In the 48 hours after his murder, Turning Point USA received over 32,000 inquiries to start new campus chapters.
That’s partly because in death, Kirk has been positioned as a martyr for the Christian nationalism movement. He has been cast as a figure who was sacrificed for the good of others. Young, mostly white conservatives want to emulate him, and their elders, including Trump, are eager to push young people in that direction.
That’s dangerous.
In times like these, when the president seeks to whitewash the history of chattel slavery by removing exhibits from federal land, while at the same time honoring a man who rose to prominence using racist rhetoric, we must be willing to see America for what it is.
We are a country that is still finding its way, still seeking direction, still trying to believe in something. Perhaps, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, we can learn to set racism aside.