The death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has reignited a troubling issue in America and that is our shrinking capacity for empathy in the face of social media misinformation.
Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10. In the aftermath, online platforms exploded with hot takes, conspiracy theories suiting everyone’s personal beliefs.
What happened in Utah leaves scars that will never fully heal. Students and staff who witnessed the violence will carry that trauma forever. Kirk’s wife and two children are left with a loss no family should ever have to endure regardless of political belief.
Nothing surprises me these days. I feel like the same cycle of rage happens often but nothing is really done at least on the political side. Both Republicans and Democratic continue to behave like children at the expense of the American people.
We can’t ignore what is truly a result of America’s history.
Two things can exist at the same time. Kirk was a father, a husband and stood boldly for his political belief and his faith (and I know fans of Kirk will be ready to share their list of examples of this), but we also can’t ignore that he was a provocateur whose career thrived on inflammatory rhetoric. Here are some examples:
- Comments on affirmative action and qualifications: In 2024, Kirk stated on The Charlie Kirk Show, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified”. He also questioned whether a “moronic Black woman” in customer service was there due to “excellence, or… affirmative action”. In 2023, he referred to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and others as “affirmative action picks,” adding that they “had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously”.
- Criticism of the Civil Rights Movement: Kirk believed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a “destructive force” and a “mistake,” claiming it was “turned into ‘an anti-white weapon'”. He also called Martin Luther King Jr. an “awful” person and desired a colorlind society.
- Kirk also dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement and promoted the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which alleges a plot to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants.
- He claimed that Black women like Michelle Obama, Joy Reid, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sheila Jackson Lee were “affirmative action picks” who “stole a white person’s slot”.
- He also stated that these women “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously”.
He’s said way more but I’ll stop there. Too often in America, religion has been used to sanctify prejudice, allowing believers to condemn whole groups while claiming moral high ground.
His assasination does not erase the fact that freedom of speech is not truly free. From slavery to the Jim Crow era, America’s history is scarred by bloodshed. Violence was always the answer to disagreement, so when people say “This isn’t who we are as a country,” they clearly weren’t present in American history class.
Look at what recently happened at Evergreen High School near Denver, Colorado. Three teenagers were critically wounded in a shooting. The same community that still bears scars from the 1999 Columbine massacre once again found itself in chaos, with over 100 officers rushing to the scene. And yet, the online response was no way near outraged like Kirk’s killing.
We’ve become numb. Mass shootings at schools, malls and public events barely register anymore unless they intersect with our political identities. Empathy has become conditional.
That silence should terrify us. When violence against children becomes normalized background noise, it’s clear that social media is eroding our shared humanity.
Social media thrives on “freedom of speech”but it has redefined the concept in ways that carry real consequences. Free speech has always been protected by the First Amendment, but it was never meant to be free from accountability.
All of this violence and trolling has made us reactive rather than reflective. Instead of listening, we retweet. Instead of reaching out to someone across the divide, we screenshot their words and mock them to our followers.
Because if we fail to reclaim empathy, we risk becoming a nation where no tragedy matters unless it validates our side of the argument.
