the nation’s response to Charlie Kirk’s death has truly fucked me up.
it’s not surprising by any means but it is so goddamn infuriating. like sorry, but there IS a place for violence in a rebellion. In a perfect world, there shouldn’t be. it’s awful that there has to be. like sure I wish violence wasn’t the answer. but history has shown us that violence is necessary, and you’re suddenly calling for peace now when Kirk’s assassination is a literal speck among every other senseless act we’ve been forced to bear witness to lately? You’re outraged someone would murder HIM but not outraged that an entire government would sanction the murder of so many innocent people? what a disgusting display of selective empathy. Like out of all the things to tug at your humanity. It’s wild.
Now do I think Charlie Kirk’s death was one of those necessary instances of violence? no. I mean maybe it’ll prove a catalyst for change, but considering people are still advocating for guns despite being outraged at his death, I’m not hopeful. I think his death made things so much worse actually because people are using it as a platform to just spread his ugly ideologies like a plague. It’s actually so scary that someone so hateful has been made into something almost divine. His voice wasn’t eliminated in death, it was fucking amplified, and I’m so angry about it.
and as far as empathy goes, I think you can have empathy or compassion for a situation without erasing the truth of what it is. Like, I can’t turn my empathy off. Ever. I can hate someone and still feel for them. But feeling for someone and glorifying someone are two very different things. as a mother and an empathetic person who literally can’t stomach any sort of violence like that at all, I really do grieve for his children. I don’t like my own child’s father, and it still eats at me to picture having to tell my kids he’s gone one day. Like children are innocent and they love blindly, and his kids are victims here and you can acknowledge that without pretending like being a father absolves you of being a dick. Like he was a father ! So? He was also a racist? I feel for his kids, but that doesn’t mean people should pretend he was anything other than what he was. you can acknowledge that gun violence is awful and murder is tragic and call for an end to it all without turning a hateful man into a hero.
I hate that shit like this happens. I didn’t like the man at all. I didn’t agree with a thing he said. I think there was so much hatred and judgement behind even the “polite” debates, and he was the face of such an ugly movement, and STILL I hate that we live in a world where he could be so easily shot. where a life can be so easily taken (which is, by the way, why we’re out here advocating for stricter gun control). Because it should be human nature to hate things like that. People should feel horrified at a shooting because compassion and anger and grief are the appropriate responses to violence. like good job acting human for once. (Although totally human and valid to not feel empathy for someone awful, too).
But it infuriates me to see the nation pulling together to martyr and grieve for one unkind man when they remained silent in the face of so many other acts of violence. Or worse, justified it. Social media right now is actually making me sick, all these people standing up for him when they couldn’t be bothered to waste even a thought on anybody else.
Where was this compassion and outrage when Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered? Where was the empathy for all the starving children in Gaza or the people being gunned down in school shootings? Where was this disgust when people were laughing at Alligator Alcatraz and calling for the abuse of human beings for their suspected immigration status? Is Charlie Kirk’s life really worth more than the lives of everyone else we’ve lost to similar tragedies? Why? God, I wish you could look into the eyes of all of these people who lost their lives and justify whatever bullshit answer you’re cradling to their face. Like how are you not embarrassed to be part of a nation that ignores violence because it isn’t relatable enough? That justifies violence in the name of the American dream? Like whose fucking dream is this? This is straight up nightmare fuel.
If political violence is wrong now, it was wrong then too, and it wrecks me that people only know how to show empathy for one type of person. Like grieve for his family, condemn the act, sure, but it’s embarrassing and so fucking disappointing to see such a person memorialized like this when so many innocent people have been tossed aside in the name of America or justice or whatever the fuck they went to call it nowadays and none of you guys cared at all. You should have had compassion for them, too. You can’t call for compassion for Kirk and then justify the violence when it comes to everybody else. You just can’t.
Like how do you not see that? Every other post I see rallying for this man makes me so angry that I cannot breathe. Like do you see the power of your words? Do you see how easy it is for compassion to spread? Do you see what a nation can do when it rallies together? Do you see the power of human fucking beings when they act like human fucking beings? Jesus Christ. It would be so easy to be a different kind of world, to end this dystopian nightmare. The answer is SHOOTING YOU IN THE FACE and you’re still somehow ignoring it. How dare you. How dare you be vocal for a man like him when you stayed silent for everyone else ? This isn’t empathy. It’s hate. It’s hate and discrimination and control all dressed up and labeled as compassion, and it’s gross.
I used to think people were just stupid. Or blind. But I’m beginning to lose faith in humanity. I’m beginning to think people are actually not good human beings at their core. I feel sick on a daily basis, overwhelmed and like I’m drowning because the world is sliding towards this awful point of no return at a nauseating speed. I thought people had more of a moral compass. I thought surely history would not repeat itself. I didn't think people would have the heart to justify the things that they have. And I’m just at a loss for words. I’m so fucking scared for my children. This world is not what I thought it was. These people are not who I thought they were. America is a like one big unethical psychological experiment playing out like a bad dream and I just don’t know that we’ll ever wake up.
