I don’t think anyone can seriously describe Charlie Kirk as a good person. At best, he was a young man driven by profit, using hate as a commodity. At worst, he believed the hatred he spewed. He died after repeating one of his transphobic talking points; he was preparing for a racist follow-up when the bullet hit him.
To be clear, this type of vigilante justice is not something I can support. I didn’t even plan to write on the topic because I didn’t have anything constructive to add until one of my high school associates reached out to me.
We will call her Nicole. Nicole is a white woman whose political affiliations shift with her friend groups. I don’t think I’ve known her true beliefs since we were kids, if she had any.
However, she felt so strongly after the Charlie Kirk assassination that she needed to talk to someone. She said she felt social media wouldn’t allow her to say what she needed to say as a white person.
Well, color me curious. I listened.
The last time I spoke to this associate about politics, she was complaining about Sesame Street and Biden while mostly celebrating Trump’s victory. She was dating a conservative man, so I wasn’t surprised by this. I had a pretty good idea of where her thoughts would go about Kirk.
I was mostly wrong.
Nicole: I’ve watched the world crumble over the last 30 years of my life because of hatred and division, usually based on lack of understanding when it comes to race. There isn’t just a lack of knowledge, but a lack of desire to learn in the United States.
I’m listening.
Nicole is sidetracked by a rant on the Israel conflict before condemning politicians.
Nicole: When we, as people, don’t follow through on those fake promises, everybody gets pissed off, understandably. You know, that’s our government that we chose to elect, and because of the fake persona that they put on, it causes tension between everybody who is around.
I have to remind myself that the average person is still willing to buy into a politician, so any revelation that these people are fake is a positive one, no matter how obvious it seems to me.
Nicole: I am a 38-year-old white woman in the South, and I’m not your typical Southern belle. I grew up in a typical middle-class family, both parents, but I went to schools that were majority Black. I got to see the first-hand struggles of these people and how society oppressed and disregarded them. I’ve also seen white people become so ignorant in their pride and ego that they put down these people for the way they live, but they don’t realize that it's white Americans who created these conditions for Black people.
When people make government assistance a lifestyle, it makes it harder on working people like us, and because of the government tension, it makes white people hate Black Americans.
Not the government?
Nicole: We are too close-minded. We are too absorbed in trying to make people like us, love us, so we turn a blind eye. The truth is that the government has us against each other.
She gets it. She goes on to talk about how the government is always trying to sneak something past us while we are fighting. She points out how easy it is for the government to use racism to distract us.
Nicole: Racism is instilled in us, or someone has a bad experience, and it is easy to blame the entire race. Racism isn’t going anywhere….We have to start looking in the mirror if we want anything to change.
I’ve seen horrific posts of (Charlie Kirk’s death) and how people wish death on him because of who he supported and what he believed. What would happen if the shoe was on the other foot and it was your family member who was shot down and killed because you were passionate about something, but society look at you as a traitor, someone who hates another race, gender, whatever…you probably wouldn’t be posting these things. We are human.
We are going to have negative thoughts about certain people, but wishing death upon somebody because they have different thoughts is ridiculous to me.
I was watching a documentary on JFK and how his life was taken so early because he wanted to change the world. He stood up for what he believed in. He was assassinated because someone was going to lose money and power.
Is she comparing Charlie Kirk to JFK? I think she is. She even mentioned how Kirk was trying to make the country better.
Nicole: It is sickening how society is nowadays, and you know there’s a lot that we cannot control, but until we take a stance, this is going to continue. It won’t be fixed in my lifetime or my children’s lifetime, but maybe it will be fixed in their children’s lifetime. We live in a beautiful world, but greed is destroying it. This has been heavy on my heart for the last few days, and I pray for anyone looking for acceptance because they are different. We should take hate and use that energy to better understand people rather than putting them in harm's way, mentally or physically.
Honestly, this is not what I expected when I agreed to share Nicole’s thoughts. From what I gathered, she is calling for empathy and love. Is social media so horrible now that we can’t ask for kindness?
Don’t get me wrong, she is showing a lot of empathy for a bad man, but it is fascinating to see someone who was seemingly a fan of Kirk also show empathy for Black people.
I do find it interesting that it is the death of a conservative white “celebrity” that causes this need to speak. I can’t help but think of all the mental and physical harm done by Kirk’s words and the Trump administration. I’ve seen plenty of it firsthand.
She is oblivious to so much, but if Kirk’s death leads to more empathy and kindness, I would be thrilled.
Sadly, I don’t think this will be the case.
They started blaming trans people almost immediately. We’ve seen that the Trump administration has little interest in human rights or even citizenship.
Trans healthcare is already under attack. As a Black man who has thought a lot about gun rights, this attack could be used as a way to justify stripping trans people of guns (despite Kirk being very pro-second amendment).
Trump has also signed an executive order for the mass commitment of unhoused people labeled mentally ill into psychiatric institutions. This is the type of situation that, when purely benevolent, could be beneficial overall. However, it is also the type of thing that could be used to justify forced commitment of any group the Trump administration may deem as mentally ill, like trans people.
While writing this, Kirk’s killer was supposedly captured. He is apparently (according to my small bubble of friends) a young, cis man who found Charlie Kirk not extreme enough. I guess the kid was a full-on Nazi. It is honestly hard to believe, but perhaps this shows how right Nicole was in her thoughts.
The world is crumbling because of hatred and division.
The killer’s identity isn’t likely to curb MAGA’s bloodlust. Trump is still calling for the heads of liberals. Right-wing media personalities are calling for war, declaring war justified.
Violence begets violence.
I wish I could end this by saying something clever like “love defeats violence,” but it would be a lie. If we just look at the history of America, we know this isn’t true. Indigenous people died with open arms, and the bloodshed never stopped.
The only advice I can give is the same advice I gave to Nicole. Don’t feed the hate, educate yourself, spread love when you can, and take care of your mental health.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of LG Ware's work on Medium.