EDITORIAL: Have Empathy for Charlie Kirk
- Nolan Russell
- Sep 11
- 2 min read
I did not agree with Charlie Kirk’s politics.
However, that does not mean he deserved to die.
Following Kirk’s murder in Utah on Wednesday, several Belmont students posted celebratory statements on the Belmont specific page on the anonymous social media platform Fizz. When confronted by others on the platform about this behaviour, some deflected, justifying their joy with Kirk’s controversial political beliefs.
“Charlie Kirk had no empathy so neither will I,” one anonymous poster said.
The discourse reached a point in which the president of the university addressed it over email Wednesday night.
“This is simply unacceptable and not reflective of Belmont, our mission or the community we are trying to foster,” President Greg Jones said in his email.
I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Regardless of what you believe I hope we can acknowledge that murder is, at its core, wrong.
Yes, Kirk was a highly controversial individual, and yes, he did criticize Belmont this summer.
But I believe gleefully celebrating the death of someone, even a perceived enemy, is to corrode your own humanity. I urge my fellow students and Americans not to stoop to that level.
Kirk’s death itself won’t cause any political momentum, but our reactions will.
There has been an undeniable rise in the number of acts of political violence carried out in America in recent years. The Jan. 6 insurrection, assassination attempts on President Donald Trump and the murder of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman all come to mind.
If we continue to condone this kind of action, tensions will continue to escalate until we are left with an unmanageable situation. Hate will never combat hate.
If you truly want things to get better in this country, show empathy; the greatest and only effective weapon we have.
One person on Fizz invoked the name of the late great American author, Mark Twain, to defend their celebration of Kirk’s death.
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure,” the supposed quote from Twain read.
Twain never said this. It’s a common misattribution; a similar quote originated from Clarence Darrow. As a matter of fact, Twain warned time and time again about the glorification of violence. To use his name to justify such glorification is a perversion of what he stood for.
“When you have prayed for victory, you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory,” Twain once said in his 1904 short story “The War Prayer.”
Likewise, when you celebrate Kirk’s death, you celebrate the unmentioned results that are sure to follow.
You celebrate the grief his family is feeling after seeing him shot dead before their eyes.
You celebrate the silencing of a voice in a country that was built around free speech, however frustrating you may think that voice is.
You celebrate the kind of violence that will tear this country apart if left unchecked.
So, if yesterday your first reaction was to laugh or rejoice, I implore you to reconsider what that attitude could mean for our country. Do you want to live in a nation where political violence is commonplace?
I certainly don’t.
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This article was written by Nolan Russell