charlie kirk is dead
but i'm sure you've heard already
hey y’all,
no beverage talk today, and i’m getting to your inbox a few hours late. it’s been a hell of a week, so thank you in advance for the grace around my tardiness. let me start by asking, how did reading the subject line of this essay feel in your body? really, deep in your somatic core, how does it feel? some feeling words i’ve been hearing around town are:
glee
dread
nothing
anxiety
relief
confused
satisfied
conflicted
i’ll tell you mine. charlie kirk once said that empathy was a new age concept doing real harm to our society. elon musk once agreed, saying empathy is what’s wrong with america. these statements incite me above all others, because i have built my entire life worshipping at the altar of empathy.
i try to practice the core tenant of loving one another, every day. i don’t always succeed, but i do always try. that, i believe, is the central message of all spiritualities and religions across time and space. love each other and love the world. i wrote about this last week, too. each other means all of us.
let me specify, this is not an attempt at a centrist argument. not all political violence is equal. not all political violence is unjustified. those who seek to subjugate entire groups of people must be stopped by any means necessary. liberation has always required sacrifice, and has never been freely given by our oppressors.
i am not unilaterally condemning acts of rebellion (if it even was an act of rebellion, and not purposely orchestrated). rather, i am attempting to capture what i believe is the only path forward when the dust settles, and that is radical love for our fellow human being.
love is not passive nor permissive. it demands that we hold ourselves to our values. it demands we are treated with dignity and respect. it demands integrity from those around us. love demands that we all acknowledge our own inherent worth. we are worthy of life. we are worthy of care. we are worthy of conflict and repair.
imagine a world where we all practiced love? where we not only expected, but demanded mutual respect of one other? where the safety, freedom, and stability of each and every person was at the core of who we were as a species? what would our society look like if that was our motivator?
you might have a different answer than me.
i believe we’d grieve less, and dance more. i believe each and every person would be housed, fed, and clothed, no matter where they live, what they look like, who they share their life with, or what they’ve contributed. i believe we’d all have safe and clean neighborhoods, free from police and prisons. we’d have high quality and accessible medical care. we’d have ended preventable illness.
we would not fear being murdered when going to school.
charlie kirk did not believe these things. true abolition means that even the most despicable among us is deserving of a chance at reform. it also means we must end tyranny, no matter the cost. two things can be true at once. i do grieve him, but i grieved him in life. i grieve for every person who cannot see the inherent worth of all human beings.
when i was 18, i was working to combat HB2 and to help other LGBTQ+ youth know that they are worthy of a life lived in the light. when charlie kirk was 18, he founded turning point USA. when i was 18, i thought he’d be the biggest threat to social progress on college campuses in my lifetime. how shortsighted you are when you’re 18.
when i was 18, i wanted to make the world a better place. i have to believe, at the very least, we had that in common. i wish that his heart and mind had been able to change. i wish i’d had the chance to try to change them. i wish he loved humanity the way that i do. i wish we didn’t live in a world where a human being can bring themselves to kill another human being, either individually or systemically. that is a scary world to live in.
the atrophy of empathy kills indiscriminately.
xoxo,
kuya von
i showed you my gooey center, please respond 👉👈
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“don't you remember how we used to split a drink? it never mattered what it was. i think our hands were just that close. the sweetness never lasts, you know.”
jet pack blues, fall out boy
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