After the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a chorus of left-wing voices has amplified accusations of racism against him.
Critics, including media personalities, clergy, and government employees, have resurfaced Kirk’s pre-death comments on civil rights icons and policies, framing them as evidence of bigotry.
The similarity to the rhetoric is fueling claims of a coordinated smear campaign by progressives unwilling to let Kirk’s death temper their attacks.
Kirk, 31, was gunned down Sept. 10 during a Utah Valley University speech allegedly by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who authorities say was motivated by perceptions of Kirk’s rhetoric as hateful.
In the days since, left-leaning media personalities and others have used the term “hate,” divisive,” “polarizing” and “racist” routinely. The debate concerning the latter centers on Kirk’s well-documented arguments compared with twisted interpretations leveled by his detractors.
Supporters argue Kirk’s direct quotes on race reflect a critique of government overreach and “woke” policies, not racial animus, and they point to Kirk’s alliances with Black conservatives and his promotion of a colorblind meritocracy.
Mostly, the left is seizing on remarks he made in 2023 and 2024, as Turning Point USA launched a campaign to challenge what he called the “fake history” of the 1960s civil rights era.
In a December 2023 speech at an AmericaFest event in Phoenix, Kirk directly assailed Martin Luther King Jr., responding to a student’s question about Title IX: “MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.”
Kirk elaborated in a 2024 podcast episode titled, “The Myth of MLK,” portraying the civil rights leader as a “complicated person” whose activism turned “violent” in his later years, and whose saintly image glossed over alleged flaws like plagiarism and infidelity.
Kirk contrasted this with MLK’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, which Kirk praised as advocating color-blindness but accused the icon of undermining through support for affirmative action-like measures.
Media Matters for America, an organization that cherry picks controversial things conservatives say and reports them, largely without proper context, seized on Kirk’s remarks and encouraged journalists nationwide to frame Kirk as a racist.
On the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Kirk was unequivocal during the same AmericaFest address: “I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it… We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
Kirk argued the law ballooned federal power, birthing “anti-white” bureaucracies like DEI initiatives and Title IX enforcement that, in his view, discriminated against conservatives. Predictably, critics seized (then and now) on the “anti-white” phrase to smear Kirk as racist.
Kirk, though, tied it to broader complaints about Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” programs, which he blamed for “destroying the Black family,” more so than Jim Crow laws ever did.
In various podcasts and speeches that year, Kirk lambasted LBJ as a “manipulative Democrat” who signed the Act to gain Black votes for his party, while simultaneously escalating the Vietnam War, causing the death of thousands of young, Black men. Kirk called the act a “scam” that entrenched welfare dependency.
Kirk defended these positions as anti-statist, not anti-Black, often citing his organization’s support for Black youth scholarships and events at the White House under President Donald Trump. Indeed, in 2020 Kirk pitched this reporter a story, published by another outlet under the headline, “Meet the Young, Black Conservatives Who Are Stumping for Trump — Despite the Backlash,” whereby Kirk suggested names of Black college students worthy of a media profile.
“We’re for meritocracy, not mythology,” Kirk said in a 2024 clip, rejecting “white privilege” as a myth and George Floyd as a “scumbag,” both of which are used today to smear the conservative leader as a racist.
“There was nothing honorable about George Floyd. … He had a violent criminal past. … But because of the color of his skin, he is now a saint,” Kirk said of the man whose death while being arrested caused months of violent, anti-police rioting by the far-left Black Lives Matter and its sympathizers.
Since Kirk’s death, left-leaning figures have weaponized all of the above quotes, blending them with others — like his reference to urban Black areas as filled with “prowling Blacks” or his endorsement of “Great Replacement” theory — a term that is catnip to any leftist hoping to frame anyone who uses it as a “white supremacist” or “racist.”
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow devoted just 22 seconds to Kirk’s death in her first show after the assassination, but found time to slam his views on the “Great Replacement strategy.” Critics noted the brevity as downplaying the tragedy while upholding the racist label.
In a Sept. 14 sermon at Dallas’s Friendship-West Baptist Church, Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III labeled Kirk a “racist” and “fake Christian” promoting white supremacy, attended by Senate candidate Colin Allred, D-Texas.
“What Kirk said was dangerous, what Kirk said was racist, rooted in white supremacy, nasty, and hate filled. But he still should be alive,” Haynes preached, referencing Kirk’s MLK dismissal and DEI critiques as divisive to Christian unity.
Conservatives in social media have been quick to defend Kirk from what they perceive as inaccurate and unfair accusations of racism, and sometimes these conservatives have an impact.
U.S. Secret Service agent Anthony Pough, for example, was placed on administrative leave after a Sept. 11 Facebook post: “If you are Mourning this guy… delete me. He spewed hate and racism on his show.”
Pough cited a clip of Kirk calling Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and other prominent Black women “affirmative action picks” lacking the “brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously,” implying they stole” a white person’s slot.”
In another example of conservatives having an impact in their defense of Kirk, MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd was fired after he described Kirk as a promoter of “hate speech” aimed at “certain groups,” then added: “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”
Word In Black, a National Urban League affiliate, published on Sept. 11: “Kirk’s ideology was dangerous and rooted in racism. Violence is never the answer, but his assassination does not erase that truth.”
The editorial invoked Kirk having once called MLK “awful”and remarks about the Civil Rights Act, calling him racist for not agreeing with their narrative that America is plagued by systemic racism.
Social media has been amplifying the narrative, with X posts branding Kirk a “proud self-proclaimed racist, bigot and misogynist” or celebrating his death as “another racist man popped.” Many others with large followings used more profane language.
There is also a Black pilot reference that many on the left are using to smear Kirk. On a 2024 podcast he criticized DEI policies that could lead to less-qualified employees in critical positions and he specifically noted that the CEO of United Airlines was DEI to recruit pilots.
“You wanna go thought-crime? I’m sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,'” Kirk said at the time. He later added that DEI “creates unhealthy thinking patterns. I don’t wanna think that way. And no one should, right?”
The accusations have prompted some swift repercussions: Dowd’s MSNBC firing, Pough’s leave, and dismissals of teachers and state employees for similar posts that seem to celebrate the assassination of a “racist.”
Republican leaders, including Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, decried such sentiments as “radical left” incitement, with Vance urging employers to “call out” celebrators. Conservative voices like comedian Terrence K. Williams highlighted Kirk’s Black youth initiatives as proof against racism claims.
For Kirk’s critics, his words — even though they were spoken in public debates, speeches and mainstream podcasts for all to hear and analyze — justify the “racist” label. But for allies, they are bold truths twisted into smears that are then used by some leftists to justify a politically motivated assassination.
Paul Bond has been a journalist for three decades, writing stories reporters in legacy media typically ignore. His work has primarily appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, Reuters and The Hollywood Reporter. Follow him on X at: @WriterPaulBond.
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