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Since the shooting death of Charlie Kirk, I’ve read numerous editorials on the topic, all of them beginning with a denunciation of gun violence. I hate gun violence as much as the next Quaker. We haven’t yet figured out how to feed the world, but we know how to kill everyone in the world 130 times over, thanks to guns and bombs. I take this personally, not wanting the people I love to die even once, let alone another 129 times. What I knew about Charlie Kirk, I didn’t like, but there are other people I don’t like, including myself some days, and that’s no reason to celebrate death. His wife and children liked him, their grief is real and profound, so I do not have it in me to be dismissive of his death.
I would have preferred Charlie Kirk live his three score and ten. I would have preferred he realize the damage his words had done, apologized for them, and worked to unify our nation, not divide it. That will never happen now. Instead, his every utterance will be remembered, celebrated, and sanctified by his followers. His more odious quotes will take on the weight and authority of Scripture for some. It is already happening, which doesn’t alter the fact that they are unworthy of permanence or veneration.
Since I don’t have a blood fetish, I didn’t go in search of video clips showing his death. I did however see several pictures of the audience cheering him on moments before he died. They were predominantly young, male, and white. This was on a college campus in Utah, after all, which among all the states has one of the lowest percentages of Black citizens. This was prime territory for Kirk, who had said, among other things, “If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified.” Kirk referred to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as an "affirmative action pick" who "did not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously". Never mind that Kirk dropped out of the community college he attended while Jackson graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, then went on to attend Harvard Law School, graduating in 1996 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude.
America has had its share of racists and Charlie Kirk was no different than any of them, except that his rise to prominence paralleled the ascendency of Donald Trump, the most bigoted president of the past hundred years. Their confluence formed the perfect storm of prejudice and hatred. In short, I held little affection for the man and his message while he lived and see no need to reconsider my opinion in his death. In life, he was not a saint; in death, he is not a martyr. He is, unfortunately, a textbook example of oblivious privilege, monetized cruelty, and unprincipled greed.
Most of all, I loathe Kirk’s habit of convincing young, white, males that their lack of success was the fault of women and racial minorities, who because of their gender and race deprived deserving white males of the opportunities due them. Rejected for entrance into West Point, he blamed unnamed minority cadets who allegedly took his spot. His go-to response to every setback and failure, which we all experience, was to blame the nearest woman, Black, or immigrant. In so doing, he taught millions of young white males to do the same.
Had I been rejected from West Point, I would have assumed it was because I graduated 77th out of 78 in the Class of 79. I would not have laid the blame on an anonymous “other.” I would have suspected the deficiency was mine, and mine alone. But now, thanks in no small part to Charlie Kirk, a generation of young males have been given the convenient excuse to blame their difficulties on those who don’t look like them, pee like them, or believe like them.
At the time of his death, Charlie Kirk was pulling in millions of dollars a year as a speaker, podcaster, and the executive director of Turning Point USA. To listen to his long list of grievances, one would have thought he was living in a tent under a bridge. I don’t know how the alleged DEI cadet who took his place at West Point fared, but I bet they’re not as wealthy as Charlie Kirk, who earned $50,000 to $100,000 for a typical appearance, where he laid all our nation’s ills at the feet of gays, trans folk, women, and racial minorities.
A woman I know wrote on her Facebook page that Charlie Kirk was killed while engaged in the ministry God had called him to. I grew up with this woman, and in every other regard she is a kind and lovely person, but now is a cultist, and like all cultists has been conditioned to believe absurdities. In the months ahead, we will see efforts made to enshrine Kirk’s words and worldview. Somewhere a statue or memorial will be built, and people will flock to see it. But his admirers are glorifying what should never be glorified—falsehoods, hatred, chauvinism, all masquerading as gospel truth. Others will read his words, now preserved for posterity, and find nothing in them meriting celebration or elevation.
Charlie Kirk did one thing well. He succeeded in turning millions of people against other people who would never hurt them. It wasn’t a trans person who killed Charlie Kirk. It wasn’t an immigrant, or a Black man, or a liberated woman. It was someone so like Kirk himself, so casually violent, so full of entitlement, that the death of those with whom he disagreed seemed a reasonable option. It was Kirk, after all, who called the execution of gay people "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.” It appears his alleged assassin had persuaded himself the death of Kirk was also, in some warped and twisted way, a final solution.
It is believed by some that Charlie Kirk aspired to the presidency. At one time, his rhetoric would have sunk his chances, but after Trump I now realize bigotry is no barrier to public office. In too many circles, it is mandatory. It took Trump mere minutes to blame Kirk’s death on the “radical left,” thirty-three hours before the alleged killer had been identified and captured. This was the political legacy Charlie Kirk hoped to build upon. The true legacy of Charlie Kirk isn’t the millions of dollars he earned, but the millions of people he persuaded that evil was good, hate was acceptable, and that our struggles were always the fault of someone else and never ourselves.
by Phillip Gulley, a Quaker Minister
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