Conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s shocking murder at a Utah speaking event, which has sent shockwaves through the nation, is further evidence that political violence is now a distinctive feature of modern American politics.
Although the shooter was eventually identified as a white 22-year-old from a mainstream Republican family, the early counter-response, including alarming threats to Black students and colleges, shows how quickly this violence risks inflaming America’s already deep racial tensions. Despite the nation’s growing racial diversity and its growing connection to political violence, the solution to this violence lies in the hands of white Americans.
Non-white people in America are in the middle of an increasingly vicious battle between the white right and the white left. On one end are white nationalists and conservative commentators who are critical of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and immigration, like Kirk. On the other are detractors of Kirk and those of his ilk, white liberals who frequently point to the right’s creep towards overt fascism, a loaded expression increasingly implying racist tendencies.
Even as a strong proponent of DEI and a disparities researcher, I found Kirk’s anti-DEI record complex, vivid and, I might even say, necessary — if only to show the nature and persistence of attitudes like his. His poise and eloquence allowed him to cross a number of third rails of political commentary, specifically when it came to discussing race.
One comment currently grabbing headlines was Kirk’s remark in a 2024 podcast episode: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” Considering the myriad hot takes on race, immigration and topics like the war in Gaza that he offered over his five or so years in the spotlight, this reflection was comparatively mild.
Like many, I regularly watched the 31-year-old’s popular Prove Me Wrong debate series, sometimes involuntarily fed clips by YouTube Shorts and Instagram. In the series, which saw him travelling across US college campuses, Kirk frequently set logic traps on race-related topics and watched over-excited students — mostly younger and inexperienced in discourse — drift into them. In Kirk’s content, as well as that of right-wing creators who parroted him or white-left commentators who feverishly critiqued him, non-white people were often minor characters to be demeaned or saved, with little space in-between.
As both a sociologist and a digital passerby, I pored through reactions on Twitter and TikTok in the hours after Kirk’s death. The commentary was chilling and sobering. Predictably, many on the right exalted Kirk as a singular voice for traditional American values and a vanguard of free speech. Other reflections, from the left, were preening and vitriolic, focused on Kirk’s perceived comeuppance and racism — a charge frequently made during his life by white liberals that the charismatic firebrand seemed little concerned about.
Kirk was stridently aware of the Faustian bargains that came with his position and equally aware of the precarity of those impacted by his bold perspectives. Consider his glib but earnest embrace of gun rights, often confidently affirming the persistent loss of innocent lives that the Second Amendment summons. This is where his true power and appeal as a white culture warrior were most evident.
According to a 2023 Pew poll, 49 percent of white households, many of which are left-leaning, own guns, compared with 34 percent of Black households and 28 percent of Hispanic households. Despite this substantial and persistent gap in ownership, Black and Hispanic people are far more likely than whites to be killed with a firearm. Non-white people are also substantially more likely than white people to believe that gun laws should be stricter. Yet collectively, racial minorities, trapped in the white left and white right’s proxy war, lack the voting power and political capital required to move the needle on gun-control policy.
Despite gains by non-white people in America in gaining political clout over the last two decades, the bulk of political muscle still rests squarely in the hands of white Americans, with Kirk’s rise a clear exemplar of the consequences. In Trump’s executive branch, fewer than 10 percent of appointees are non-white. Six of the nine US Supreme Court judges are white. Forty-seven of the nation’s 50 governors are white. And only 28 percent of House members are Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American — shares that the GOP’s proposed redistricting vision is likely to further diminish.
To this end, the white left and white right are locked in a state of toxic co-dependency that’s very much fueled by this power imbalance and the threat of it changing. White politicians and media figures on the right have long played a central role in amplifying the racial grievances of everyday Americans, which in turn has given white left-leaning politicians a headline-grabbing talking point. But the left has been unable to craft a cohesive, compelling message on systemic racism that resonates beyond liberal enclaves: case in point, their currently failing effort to use Kirk’s history of overt racism to thwart his coronation from the right.
Despite the frosty feelings many non-white people may rightfully feel towards Kirk, the resort to murder as a so-called remedy to racism is broadly understood as disingenuous, cold and deeply counter-productive. Black Americans are particularly attuned to this because they have seen the other side of this dichotomy.
John F Kennedy, a civil rights beacon, was felled in his motorcade by the bullet of a misfit assassin. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X were both 39 when they were assassinated — Malcolm X by a member of the Nation of Islam, which he had recently left, and King by an ex-con white supremacist. The assassination of Robert F Kennedy, who was likely to carry his brother’s mantle even farther, followed soon thereafter. Each death left the nation inches away from catastrophe. While the nation did not walk away unscathed, at least there were political leaders on both sides who, despite not knowing the long-term solution, were committed to short-term de-escalation.
Charlie Kirk represented many things, but above all, he was remarkably successful in creating a vision of America — a decidedly white America — that compelled many and gave many others like me a visceral symbol of racial regression to resist. He embodied the rawest — and to some the most uncomfortable — manifestation of free speech. It is fully possible to embrace this without embracing his deeply troubling ethos. But it is impossible to talk earnestly about addressing America’s political violence without acknowledging the diminished agency of the racial minorities who repeatedly serve as its foil.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
