On Wednesday Morning, the world took a turn – some would say for the worse, others for the better. That morning, many of us began our day with the news that Charlie Kirk, a conservative political “activist” known for his “Prove Me Wrong” debates with college students, was shot and killed at a university in Utah while discussing the frequency of school shootings in the United States (all while an actual school shooting was taking place in Colorado).
Many have noted the irony in this fact, especially since he said at an event with TPUSA Faith in 2023, “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights”.
But now, it is having an effect on the Black community, as Black students and HBCUs around the United States are receiving dangerous threats of retaliation (for something they had no part in) from far-right groups.
But if anything can be taken away from Kirk’s murder, it has made it extremely clear that there is a double standard when it comes to how we discuss gun violence and politics.
The reality is, political violence has grown increasingly more common in the United States. Minnesota Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband have been among the state’s most recent victims, having lost their lives on June 14, 2025. But when the Hortmans were shot while sleeping in their homes, no flag was lowered to half-mast. Instead, her case was no more than an afterthought for Kirk and the president; in fact, it was barely worth mentioning. But when the same thing happened to one of their own, suddenly it was finally time to take action, just not in the way people might have hoped.
In the two days since Kirk’s shooting, right-leaning supporters of Kirk declared war on the “radical left” in the United States.
Somehow, before Kirk’s killer was even identified, “radical right” supporters were quick to blame Democrats, like how Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna screamed “Y’all caused this!” at Democrats on the House floor on Wednesday night. Trump spoke from the Oval Office, singling out those on the “radical left” for promoting dangerous rhetoric while limiting victims of political violence to those with whom he aligned. Meanwhile, manifestos threatening Black students with violence of varying intensity are being sent to Universities across the United States even though they had absolutely nothing to do with Kirk’s murder.
Kirk’s killer was a white, straight, cisgender male from a heavily conservative Republican family. He was not a student, he was not a person of color, he did not attend an HBCU, so why are they being targeted? Because, like it or not, Charlie Kirk’s public prominence allowed people to display their anger at the Democratic Party through mind-numbing debates, when they had been waiting for an excuse to resort to hateful violence.
Ultimately, the way Kirk was killed was absolutely horrible, and nobody deserves to be a victim of gun violence. However, it’s hard to show much empathy for a person who actively and publicly called for people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and immigrants in the United States to be treated as second-class citizens.
It’s hard for someone like me, a mixed Black woman born to immigrant parents from Minnesota, to watch a man like Kirk capitalize on the suffering of others and feel sympathy when the tables are turned. How can we feel bad for a man who called for people like me to die, who said he would force his 10-year-old daughter to deliver the baby of her sexual assaulter, and who said that a few deaths from gun violence were a necessary evil to allow for our democracy to thrive?
The next few weeks will not only be a period of mourning, but a time filled with fear and apprehension of what’s to come next. I feel horrible for the children he left behind, and for his wife (even if I disagree with her views), for losing the person she loves and having to raise their kids on her own. Losing a loved one is a pain that never really goes away. But I do have hope for the future. I hope that Kirk’s children will be raised to be better and kinder people than their father. I hope that his death will finally wake people up to realize that gun violence affects everyone, and even the whitest, most right-wing citizens are not exempt from that fact. I hope children going to school no longer have to live in fear that they may not return home after the school day is over, and I hope that, instead of descending into a near civil war, an experience like this can finally bring us all together. Hoping may not be enough, but now all I can do is hope.
Opinions are those of the author’s alone and do not reflect the views of the Annenberg Media newsroom or its leadership.