This editorial comes after the death of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk. This is not an endorsement of violence against people who say dangerous things. It is also absolutely not a celebration of his death. It is an observation that there is a lesson I sincerely hope America learns, before Kirk’s headlines become those of another. We need a better nation.
There will be many hot takes about the murder of Charlie Kirk, some that will try to justify the death, and others that will try to villainize yet another enemy. Maybe this take is somewhere in the middle.
I do want to talk about the incident of Kirk’s killing, but also about the pervasiveness of ableism and how it allows all of us to say things that feel fine in the moment because we’re alive and healthy enough to say those things.
When I read the news that Kirk had been shot, I was surprised because he was high profile, but I was not shocked because the political situation of our country is ripe for incidents like this. His killing won’t be the last, for sure.
Unfortunately, I saw the video of the shooting — too many times — on social media.
Here’s what has lingered for me and why I can’t offer more than indifference and the realism that death is the ultimate equalizer.
I can’t join any celebration, though I hated everything he stood for, because in the moment of his shooting — if you’ve seen the video — when his hands curl into fists, his arms flex towards his body just before he falls over, bleeding profusely, the reality of death as all of our final boss was too real. It was that moment that highlighted the huge mistake that is the bravado of the American persona. We think we’re invincible in our “freedom.” So much so that what we really are is highly irresponsible.
That moment after the bullet entered Kirk’s body, in medicine, is called decorticate posturing, and when you see it, the end of a life is usually imminent. After seeing that video, to then see him carried and thrown, limp, into a black SUV was stark.
The shock for America is this: accountability came.
That sounds brutal, I understand that, but ultimately, it is the essence of what is driving the fervor surrounding his violent end. We saw something terrible happen in real time as a response to speech that many feel (myself included) is divisive.
It was a chilling event and vivid moment that all of the school shootings and other gun violence deaths have failed to show our nation. Somehow, his death shocked America stupid. The idea that we can say whatever we want while we’re healthy, but if we are, somehow, felled by a bullet or a knife, the moment becomes a cause for mourning, ignoring the lack of responsibility that endangered many and ourselves along the way.
Kirk played a dangerous game with no concern about the consequences. His entitlement to be divisive was fine until it wasn’t. For his children, this loss is devastating and sad.
There are those in the news still spewing prejudiced rhetoric surrounding this event, even a supposedly leaked memo from the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) that claims the bullets were inscribed with trans and anti-fascist language — probably bullshit. It’s too soon after the event. Besides, who needs to inscribe a message on a bullet when the bullet is the message? An extremely accurate bullet.
There will be many theories about why Kirk was killed, and vast amounts of political opportunists who make attempts to use his death to justify worse behavior and more wild language than Kirk himself used. Throughout the GOP, we’re already seeing those seeking to profit and score political points from this man’s death.
Few will consider that we need to talk about two things the most: the responsibility of our sacred right to free speech, and our understanding that it comes with a heavy burden of responsibility.
We’ve allowed rampant irresponsibility, particularly from the right, to say very dangerous things about our nation, placing blame on immigrants, socialism, women, youth, Black Americans, etc. The list is endless, and the goalpost is in constant motion.
In addition, we’ve made too much space for all of our elected officials — Democrats and Republicans — to do nothing but chatter about the issues that feed the violence and moral poverty of our country.
America has never been a moral place. Its foundation was built on blood. Kirk’s shooting, which happened at nearly the same time as a school shooting in Colorado, made that plain once again. America is bought and paid for by blood. It is fueled by it.
Maybe Kirk will be held up as a martyr for opportunists on the right, or maybe, and this is my own naivete, his death will finally put the American persona in check, where we consider that the rhetoric we use has consequences for many. Perhaps, his death will finally create space for America to understand that more guns won’t create more safety, but humility and a collective responsibility might. Kirk learned this lesson in the worst way.
We are never going to have a nation without immigrants. We are never going to be a nation without Black or Asian people. America cannot exist on whiteness, and it cannot continue to exist on the subjugation and demonization of other people.
Kirk lived and made a lot of money feeding on the desperation of a scared white America, afraid that their perceived entitlements were being stolen. Kirk, along with others, created a dystopian fiction of what America is and what it should be. He jumped on a bandwagon that stepped on others to embiggen himself, and now that his lack of foresight left his wife a widow and his children fatherless, what will our nation do with the reality that we’re in more danger?
Racism and hatred are expensive, and even those who profit from it initially seem to pay heavily in the end.
Charlie Kirk was a loud idiot. His death and the legacy of dangerous rhetoric should be a lesson for all facets of America to check our privilege and personas.
Neither he nor his death is worthy of celebration or martyrdom because it simply offers more space to the ugliness that creates the danger that killed him and that has killed and harmed thousands of Americans this year.
We need to be done with it from politicians, pundits, and in our communities. This shooting should have scared us all. We need a better nation.
