In the quest for nuance, empathy, and understanding, be
careful not to inadvertently help sainthood Charlie Kirk
Sep 11, 2025
Very rarely do I narrow the scope so tightly on whom I am
speaking to in my essays, but this is going to be one of those cases. I am
writing this quite specifically to those who were not frequent targets of the
words of Charlie Kirk. This is for those of you who might have never heard of
him before today. Even if you align yourself with words like “progressive” or
“left-leaning,” he might be a new figure in your world, though he wasn’t for a
lot of people. Perhaps you are new to this fight for social justice, and you
can’t wrap your head around why someone, anyone, would have a reaction any less
than immediately saying, “There is no place in a civil society for this…”
If you can not understand why someone would have a visceral
reaction to the loss of someone so vile, then you are one of the lucky ones.
Perhaps you weren’t someone who lost family members to his
rhetoric. But so many others were. I have seen his vile words slither into the
minds of people I was once close to. Even now, I am seeing folks that I had no
idea held his views as valuable mourning him and quoting him. So many of us are
having to realize that people we thought were safe are not. This is being piled
on after nearly a decade of already losing so many people to his malignant
despotism.
So, you might be sitting here watching folks shrug off the
death of another and saying, “How can you lack empathy? How can you lack
understanding?” And I am asking you the very same question. How can you lack
empathy and understanding for those whom he harmed?
I recently wrote about an experience I had when my cousin
died, and my instant guttural reaction was to laugh, “Just a few years after
leaving the priesthood, on a not-so-eventful day, I received a call from my
mother letting me know that my cousin had died. Moreover, he had been murdered.
A sense of relief flushed over my body, knowing that I would never have to see
his face again. That he could no longer lurk in dark corners or harm anyone
else. At the news, I laughed instead of cried. I had been released from my own
personal Hell, whose flames nipped at my heels anytime
the specter of possibly seeing him would rise. Immediately upon his death, he
was sainted in the media. I have visited his grave once, only to ensure that it
existed. I said no words, I did not piss upon it (as I often joked I would),
and I prayed no prayers. His being dead was enough.”
The context of these words was that I didn’t need there to
be a Hell for him to suffer in for all
eternity, but I was also not obligated to mourn an evil man meeting a demise of
his own creation. My cousin lived a violent life, causing immense harm and
destruction anywhere that he went. As a result, he met a violent end.
Some of the reactions I have seen toward those who can not
muster alligator tears in this moment would be like Dorthy turning around to
the Munchkins, saying, “How dare you sing that song! She was a sister, a
friend, and she went to school once.”
Charlie Kirk spent his life vilifying people. Most
specifically, he went after the most vulnerable amongst us. He turned their
parents and siblings against them. He made using the restroom a battleground.
He called Black people less than human. In the wake of school shootings, he
told parents that their children dying in the hallways was a necessary casualty
of protecting the Second Amendment. With his words and actions, he dehumanized
anyone who was different than him and actively fought for a world in which
those folks were erased. After the attempted assassination of Paul Pelosi, he
said that folks should bail him out. He made heroes out of the worst people
imaginable and wished harm on those with whom he disagreed. He fomented young
people to become violent so that he could hide behind his words and demand
nuance, only to serve himself, and never gave grace to those he saw as other.
Now, the very people that he has spent his life demonizing
are being blamed for his death without cause or merit.
But because a trans teenager who is living in their car,
rejected by parents over the words of Charlie Kirk, made a Tweet that said,
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” you are responding from the safety of your
home, demanding a nuance that you aren’t willing to give them.
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If you have never been on the receiving end of being a
target of Charlie Kirk, and you are only seeing passive things he said that are
being quoted by his allies, then you aren’t seeing the full picture. I am aware
that the video of what happened to him is shocking, and the guttural reaction
is to have empathy for his family. I would even go so far as to say that having
such empathy is good in a sense, it means you aren’t as vile as he, a man who
couldn’t find empathy at all for anyone, and actually demeaned empathy as
weakness. Yet, if you can not also find empathy for those whom he and his
followers have perpetually victimized, then you are missing a major component
in all of this. Every despot alive had a mother, but you will not find me
crying at the graves of evil men who had their regimes toppled by those they
subjugated.
It is good that you are able to find empathy in this
moment; it means you aren’t like him. However, it does not mean that those who
do not mourn him are. That is an important distinction.
Countless people have lost their lives to the violent
rhetoric of Charlie Kirk; those lives also mattered. Is it possible that he
would have changed if given a longer life? Perhaps, but playing an experimental
game of “what if” is also dangerous in this moment.
In the aftermath of his death, the Christian Nationalists
were quick, without any proof, to lay blame at the feet of the trans community.
This is the very same thing that Charlie Kirk was so well known for. He did
this countless times, and by doing so, he put their lives in danger. Those who
followed him are quickly taking up the mantle. Even today, Donald Trump
eulogized Charlie Kirk by stating that he died because folks called him a Nazi,
while at the same time lumping everyone who disagreed with him as “the radical
left.”
The writing is on the wall that this moment will be used to
justify rounding up more immigrants into concentration camps. They are setting
the stage to make it illegal to call a fascist what they are. And, I promise
you, that a time is coming soon when anyone who criticizes this administration
will be considered a terrorist. It is already happening now in other parts of
the world. The mere attempt to protest is landing folks in handcuffs. We are
watching our fundamental rights being stripped away from us.
Yes, we are all unsafe in this moment, but we must take a
beat to realize who will suffer first: immigrants, refugees, activists, Black
folks, Muslims, the queen community, and our trans siblings. They are
profoundly in more danger today than they were yesterday. They are being
saddled with the blame for what happened long before someone has even been
arrested or a motive announced.
I am fully aware that somewhere in the world, a woman is
crying because her husband is dead. She had to sit down and explain to her
young children that their father isn’t coming home. That reality is not lost on
me. Inasmuch as I am able, I can see that scene play out in my mind's eye, and
I know that they are feeling pain today. It is this idea, this true thing, that
you are demanding that people also take a moment to acknowledge. I hear that.
The counter to this narrative is that so many folks who this very man has
harmed are asking you, “How can you hear her cries over the children dying in
the streets from these endless wars, above the tears of the trans person
sobbing in their car about to lose their life, and beyond the children hiding
under their desks at school?”
I need you to understand that what I have written here
today will likely be read at my own sentencing someday, when they justify
ripping me away from my children simply because I wrote words, asked questions,
and openly challenged the narrative of my government. That is the nuance you
are asking to understand.
Most of us have lived with the privilege of this type of
violence happening on shores far away from us, and so seeing it playing out in
our own streets and universities is jarring. But, make no mistake, this is not
new. These politicians who are demanding civility now watched videos far more
horrific than you saw in the last 24 hours happening to elementary school
children and looked the other way to justify their political ends. They have
lacked empathy at every moment from Columbine to Sandy Hook, but are now
feigning shock that no one can mourn the wicked.
So, before you write words condemning those who cannot find
it within themselves to shed a tear for the man who tore them apart, I am
begging you to have empathy and understanding for THEM in this moment. Take a
beat to read his words, to fall down a night-long rabbit hole, actually
investigating the final solution that they hoped would come from things like
Project 2025. Listen to the hurt and pain and reality from those whom Charlie
Kirk wished to see deported, arrested, and executed.
I am begging you to do this now, because very soon, those
voices will be silenced, and the only thing that you will be able to hear is
propaganda being pumped by the mechanisms created and endorsed by the man you
are demanding that they mourn.
You should be shocked by political violence. I desperately
hope and fight for a world where no one has to see what we all saw this week.
That is a noble cause and a beautiful hope. But, at this time, we must also
live in reality. The real world that we are all tethered to is that Charlie
Kirk was a White Christian Nationalist who promoted hate and violence. He
diminished countless people. Those politicians who have spent decades saying we
can not politicize the death of school children who died are now using the
death of this man, who championed these tragedies, as a political tool. They
said there was nothing that could be done, that nothing could stop these
horrors. That there would always be a good guy with a gun. That we should trust
the process. Yet, make no mistake, they will suddenly find the motivation to
stop violence. But they will use violence to do so. It is only a matter of time
before they start rounding up people who were never involved in his death,
purely based on their identity and ideology. I need you to hear their cries.
It is good that you are repulsed by political violence. I
am too. I am just begging you to cast a wider net on that outrage.
