Let’s Have an Honest Conversation about Charlie Kirk

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author in their role as Associate Editor, and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Last week, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus. First, it must be said: this event has left a wife without a husband, a family without a father, and countless witnesses shaken by trauma they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. There is no downplaying that.

And yet, in the aftermath, I’m struck by the way this tragedy is being iconized and weaponized.

Charlie Kirk was a known political figure, though far from the stature of a Ben Shapiro or Joe Rogan. Much has been said about his legacy — but we can’t ignore what he actually stood for. Kirk spent years belittling Black people’s skills, questioning whether Black professionals earned their positions by merit or “affirmative action.” He once suggested he wouldn’t trust a Black pilot because of his race. He also believed the Civil Rights Act a “mistake” and “an anti-white weapon.” He championed the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, casting immigrants as pawns in a Jewish plot to erase white America. He denounced feminism, told women to “submit,” and consistently ridiculed LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and anyone outside his worldview.

None of this justifies his death, nor do I raise it to attack his grieving family. But to have a serious conversation about this moment, we must be honest about what Kirk contributed to. He didn’t simply “debate across the aisle.” He stoked a politics of division and fear, one that normalized hatred and, in some cases, inspired violence. The “great replacement” myth, which Kirk openly promoted, has appeared in the manifestos of multiple mass shooters. Kirk once told his listeners: “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact.” Is it any wonder that young white men radicalized by this narrative have gone on to kill?

That’s why I cannot agree with those rushing to say Kirk was “practicing politics in exactly the right way,” as Ezra Klein recently wrote. Nor do I see Kirk as a martyr of “free speech.” If anything, his career shows how words have impact, and how rhetoric shapes the environment in which violence thrives.

We also need perspective. Some on the right are treating this assassination as a new turning point in American life. But political violence did not begin here. Last summer, a Democratic caucus leader was gunned down with her husband. In 2022, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in his home by a man who intended to kill her. The year before, January 6th rioters sought to execute lawmakers. These events were minimized, mocked, or even encouraged by many on the right — Kirk included. When violence targeted their opponents, it wasn’t treated as existential.

So no, Charlie Kirk’s death is not “the end of civil conversation.” It’s part of a longer pattern: political violence becoming normalized in America. The difference now is that figures who once fanned the flames are beginning to feel the burn.

Meanwhile, those who refuse to glorify Kirk are facing their own backlash. MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd was fired after suggesting Kirk’s rhetoric may have contributed to the circumstances of his death. Our own outlet, Yellow Scene Magazine, has received threats for publishing criticisms of Kirk. Ironically, the assassination is now being used as justification to silence critique of Kirk and his agenda, even though he was the one constantly parading as a defender of “free speech.”

We have a choice. We can pretend this assassination is an isolated tragedy, a break from civility in an otherwise healthy system. Or we can confront the ideologies of hatred and grievance that created the conditions for this violence, ideologies that Kirk himself helped spread. If we choose the former, more people will die. If we choose the latter, we might begin to reckon honestly with the politics that brought us here.

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