In my view, the public response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old white supremacist at Utah Valley University last week, underscores how racist rhetoric is becoming normalized. As the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit, he traveled across the country, inviting people to debate him on various controversial issues. However, he often did so disingenuously, relying on racist stereotypes to justify his stance. At this event in particular, one audience member asked if he knew "how many transgender Americans have become mass shooters over the last 10 years." If he answered honestly, he'd have to admit that very few would fit this description. But Kirk responded with racially coded language. He said, "Counting, or not counting gang violence." These were his last words before a single shot fatally struck him in the neck. While some suggest Kirk was killed because he held unpopular beliefs, others argue that hateful rhetoric fueled the violence. In any case, his death and the legacy he left behind sparked a fierce debate.
As Charlie Kirk's unflattering legacy came into focus, some of his fans accused others of celebrating his death. However, this characterization uses too broad a brush. Many responded to the news of his death by quoting him. For example, Karen Attiah, the last full-time Black opinion columnist at The Washington Post, was fired after sharing such a statement. She posted, "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's job." Representatives of the Post called her statement "unacceptable" and characterized it as "gross misconduct.” It's a shame that the same paper that used the slogan, "democracy dies in darkness," has become instrumental in turning off the light. Eager to whitewash his legacy, some have grown frustrated with Black people and others who refuse to accept the whitewashing of his public image. To punish those who refuse to "honor" a white supremacist, some conservatives made a list of people, doxxing them by sharing personal information. It's an effort to silence them and deprive them of their First Amendment right to free speech.
Despite this prominent case of white-on-white violence, Black people, immigrants, and transgender people have faced backlash following Charlie Kirk's assassination. Several HBCUs received death threats and had to implement lockdown protocols after receiving "terroristic threats." I personally received one message online that suggested I should be "assassinated," with another sent to my email threatening bodily harm. As did many others. Utah Governor Spencer Cox expressed disappointment after learning the identity of the suspect. He prayed they weren't "one of us," that they'd be "somebody from another country." If the alleged sniper were an undocumented immigrant of color, for instance, Republicans would have gladly used this narrative as red meat for their base. Then, they could elevate the case to justify harsh immigration policies.
President Donald Trump ordered all American flags across the country lowered to half-mast "in honor of Charlie Kirk." He plans to award him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Strangely enough, he expressed disappointment when President Biden ordered the flags to be lowered in honor of former President Carter. Additionally, he refused to honor Minnesota Representative Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, in this way, despite her being killed during a political assassination last June. Representative Anna Paulina Luna suggested in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson that a statue of Kirk should be placed in the U.S. Capitol, in honor of the late white supremacist. Republicans are sending a not-so-subtle message to Black people and other marginalized groups that espousing hatred against us is legitimate political ideology, praiseworthy even. Some liberals also joined the effort to sanitize his legacy. For example, Ezra Klein suggested in The New York Times that "Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way." He applauded him for his willingness to engage in debate with others. However, when you're a racist, your willingness to challenge others' ideas is a moot point. There are some things, like hate, that should not be up for debate.
Charlie Kirk left behind two children, a wife, and a legacy of hate speech. The rhetoric is so inflammatory that if you quote him, his supporters will accuse you of speaking ill of the dead. Yet, during his life, Kirk often relied on racist stereotypes to justify prejudice against Black people and other racial minorities. This is a form of Bayesian racism. For example, he once suggested "prowling Blacks go around for fun to target white people." While most violent crimes involve two people of the same race, racists often claim that Black people pose a threat to white people — that they are more dangerous and more criminal than other groups. And in terms of interracial violence, Klein and Allison found that "the most common racial combination in violent encounters involved white offenders and Black victims, based on the United States Extremism Database and national homicides recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, while controlling for age, sex, region, relationship, weapons, and number of offenders (Tessler et al., 2018)." While Black people are more likely to be victims of hate crimes per capita, Kirk's statements suggest the opposite. He encouraged other white people to fear Black people, even though the data indicate this is an irrational fear.
In another example, Kirk called George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed Black man killed by Minneapolis police officers in 2020, a "scumbag." While some claim no one should criticize the far-right activist because he's a parent, this is obviously a courtesy he didn't extend to Floyd. Kirk joined many on the far right, spreading misinformation about his cause of death, attempting to justify the violence he endured in the final moments of life. Millions watched the viral video showing Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes, a blatant injustice that reignited the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet, despite the violence he faced, many white supremacists refused to let him rest in peace. They mocked his death in memes, reduced his suffering to a talking point, and harassed any Black person they could with the memory of his death. In short, they rubbed salt in the wound.
Disrespecting the memory of George Floyd is just one of the many cruel and unusual talking points for which Charlie Kirk is remembered. He also doubted that Black people were equal to white people. "If I see a Black pilot, I'm gonna be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified," doubting that Black person could fly a plane with the same skill as a white person. Of course, Black pilots must meet the same qualifications as white pilots, but this talking point that suggests they're unworthy of opportunities has become popular on the right. It's their way of opposing racial progress under the guise of meritocracy. Kirk also claimed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a "mythological anti-racist creation," and referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as "a mistake." One summer, he called Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of chattel slavery in Galveston, Texas, a threat to the "fabric of our country." In light of his statements, it's not cruel to say Charlie Kirk left behind a legacy of racism, hatred, and vitriol behind him; it's an interpretation aligned with many of his statements.
While individuals across the political spectrum should condemn political violence, we shouldn't overlook the virulent racism white extremists often espouse in this country or accept prejudice as legitimate political discourse. Conservatives usually claim that violent crime in America is a problem emanating from black communities. Still, they ignore the successes of Black mayors like Brandon Scott in Baltimore, who implemented policies that successfully reduced violent crime rates. They also tend to overlook violence within their own communities, such as young White men becoming mass shooters. Some Americans are allowing hate speech to seep even deeper into our laws, policies, and practices. It's one thing to condemn violence, which is something leaders should do; it's another entirely to hold space for Kirk's racism. While Klein states that "political violence is a virus," and that it will spread, he seems to overlook two points: that "white nationalist sentiment significantly predicts support for political violence (Hanner et al., 2025), and that there's a tradition in this country of Black people and other marginalized groups, enduring political violence.
White people have often been purveyors of racial political violence against marginalized groups, even in recent history. In 2015, a white supremacist, Dylann Roof, killed nine Black people in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston. After sitting silently with them for a while, he opened fire, committing a hate crime in the hopes of starting a race war. On May 14, 2022, Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white supremacist, fatally shot ten Black people in the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York. In his manifesto, he claimed that racial minorities were replacing White people. These tragic incidents show that some who are radicalized online and conditioned to hate marginalized groups engage in violence. And Charlie Kirk played a significant role in making some of these racist ideas mainstream, bringing them directly onto college campuses and universities. So, rather than claiming he was "practicing politics the right way," we should stop lending safe harbor for racist attitudes and beliefs. We should all stop pretending that there's no harm in normalizing prejudice.
It's dangerous to treat racism as a legitimate political ideology. Since America has been down this road before, we shouldn't keep making the same mistakes. We must learn from the history of Jim Crow, understand how terrible conditions were for Black people, and vow "never again." While we are responsible for creating space for diverse perspectives, James Baldwin was right to point out the limits of this approach. We can't simply agree to disagree when someone is trying to dehumanize a group — that pushes us beyond the bounds of tolerance. If someone claims that Black people are less intelligent than white people, more likely to commit crimes, or the root of social problems, we don't have to debate them, nor do we need to observe a moment of silence in their honor. It might seem radical nowadays, with people losing jobs for quoting Charlie Kirk, but we shouldn't be bullied into silence. Americans need to reject the mythos of white supremacy, and they shouldn't shy away from criticizing those who carry its water.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Allison Gaines' work on Medium.