Charlie Kirk's beliefs

[MsAmerica]

If You're Wondering What Charlie Kirk Believed In, Here Are 14 Real Quotes
In light of his death, Charlie Kirk's legacy is being remembered through these viral quotes.
BuzzFeed

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexalisitza/viral-charlie-kirk-quotes

I think you have spent hours earnestly watching footage in order to desperately figure out ways to say that it's completely fine and not at all racist to talk about a 'moronic black woman', a black pilot making you nervous, four black women 'stealing a white person's slot' and it's blinded you to normal, decent standards of conversation and behaviour. Your context and explanation for those quotes does not stack up. Someone with a record of saying all those things cannot be defended as a non-racist. There is something so warped about a person spending so long trying to find a way to say that those phrases, that language and those ideas are not racist. It's genuinely disturbing that you think you can convince people that stuff is not racist.

All of this 👏🏼

It's quite remarkable what mental gymnastics people will do to justify the unjustifiable

I wasn't desperate to figure ways to say he wasn't racist, I was curious to see if things were true or not.
And I didnt say I spent hours looking into it. I said it would take hours to look into every controversial CK quote doing the rounds.

After being involved in the gender debate, I am very used to people coming up elaborate lists of smears to take a celebrity down, e.g. there are communities online that will swear blind that JK Rowling is a holocaust denier.

The first few items I looked into, in my view were wild distortions of the truth. You may disagree that they were. From this point it was reasonable to conclude that most, if not all, of the damning quotes attributed to Kirk would be similarly twisted by some of the many people who hated him.

Overall, after learning more about Charlie Kirk in the last week than I ever wanted to or thought I'd need to, I've seen lots of things that made me like him less and lots of things that made me like him more.

I feel the same way about his strong critics - apart from the liking them more bit.

And so you find yourself online arguing over and over that someone saying prowling blacks, moronic black woman, black pilots make me nervous, these black women stole a white person's job isn't a racist and isn't spreading racist ideas. Like there is or could ever be a context that makes them not racist. Add that to the misogyny and you still think this is a person who should be defended against accusations of bigotry. It's so far out of the realms of normal, reasonable discourse and it's absolutely wild to see people contorting themselves every which way to deny a glaringly obvious truth.

You keep coming back to me arguing that the quote "prowling blacks" isn't racist, which I haven't done. What I said was it certainly sounds racist. But until I read it myself I'm not going to trust the people who have been lying about Kirk all week, and take them at their word. You see how that works?

You're arguing that a man who used that phrase along with a number of other derogatory phrases about black people isn't racist. Whether you can find a desperate flimsy justification for the prowling blacks comment or you come back and concede yeah, that's one racist but all the others not problematic at all - it just doesn't matter. In the big picture of this man, he routinely broadcast phrases to his large audience that would get anyone fired for racism if they said them in the workplace. As in, phrases that are undeniably racist. Phrases that shock and disgust most people who hear them.

It's very bizarre how much you want to disprove the claims of racism about a man who spoke about black people in that way. You've conceded the misogyny; well, put it together with the litany of offensive things he said about black people and please realise what kind of a man you're talking about here.

I'm arguing that accusations at a man repeatedly defamed in death are wisely treated with suspicion.

Hats off to you @TheClaaaw and @CantCallItLove for continuing to provide coherent and logical arguments in response to a brick wall of ignorance, wilful blindness, personal insults and gaslighting. You will never convince some posters that the sky is blue because they don’t want to believe it. Unfortunately they have not been able to provide a reasonable argument without resorting to underhand tactics I’ve already described. It was Game Over pretty early on in the thread. You really cannot rationalise with irrationality of this extreme degree.

He wasn't defamed. His own words tell us who he was. I absolutely agree with @Plastictreees that once you're arguing with someone who looks at a litany of racist comments and constructs an absolutely bullshit flimsy veil of context around them to pretend that derogatory statements about black people aren't racist, it is a brick wall of contrary ignorance.

He wasn't defamed?
There are people on this thread who are still adamant he wanted gay people stoned to death and will listen to a video saying one thing and swear blind he said another. Most of you are blinded by hate.

Man repeatedly makes statements about black people including descriptors like 'moronic', suggests they're unqualified for their jobs, accuses them of stealing jobs from white people, describes them in animalistic terms and calls them violent.

Underthinker: but how can we POSSIBLY conclude from that that he's racist? What terrible defamation!

(I don't think I'm the one blinded by hate here)

I don't hate anyone. I'm always disappointed if a public figure turns out to have made racist / sexist comments, because it would be nicer if they hadn't. You seem to want people to be racist & sexist so you have someone to feel superior to.

I would much rather that Kirk had never said any of that stuff. Reading it makes me feel sick, not superior.

I won't subject myself to any more of his horrible, hateful rhetoric, but in everything I've so regrettably seen of him this past week, I haven't seen anyone able to collate a catalogue of derogatory comments he's made about white people. No litany of comments about a 'moronic white person' he's encountered or under qualified white people, or 'prowling whites' attacking black people. He didn't talk about white people in those terms. I just don't believe anyone truly thinks he wasn't racist. And so I have to wonder why anyone would spend time trying to prove otherwise, when it's all there for us to see. I also really wish that no one would do this. I would love to have not spent so much of my own time pointing out how awful the things he said were, and again - I feel sick reading the defence of racism on Mumsnet. I don't feel smug and great about myself for arguing back against it; I feel weary and tired and sad at the state of the world when people defend that kind of bigoted, awful bile. It's profoundly depressing more than anything else.

Have you seen the video of Kirk defending gay people from the maga guy, and asking why it matters what they do in their private life?

Have you seen the videos from black content creators who say Kirk reached out spontaneously and helped them early in thier careers?

Charlie Kirk did not make this world worse. What a horrible thing to say about somebody who never harmed anyone

It just doesn't compensate for spreading racist rhetoric all across the airwaves, I'm sorry. I'm sure he made some performative gestures as part of that flimsy veil of deniability, but his words inciting hatred and fear reveals that for what it is.

Well he certainly didn’t make it better did he, with a large platform he used to spread misogynistic, racist and bigoted beliefs. His words are far more ‘horrible’ than what that poster said.

If I was going to make a performative gesture on gay rights, I wouldn't do in a room of jeering rednecks.

And if he wasn't a racist, he wouldn't have spent a large part of his life inciting fear, hatred and contempt against black people with the words he broadcast.

You are not alone @CantCallItLove . I feel exactly the same. It’s not some joyful and relished discussion, it feels more like an obligation because some things simply can’t be left to stand without challenge. But dealing with the response, the insistence that night is day, the endless demands for evidence even when it’s been provided again and again, is exhausting and depressing and sadly the people doing this are impervious to evidence and wouldn’t change their views even if he appeared now to them in some supernatural form and declared to them himself in person that he was, indeed, a racist and misogynist.

It’s lamentable that some posters have refused to accept that they might agree with some of Kirk’s less vile and extreme views but that doesn’t mean that it’s justifiable or logical to defend him and convenient ignore everything else he said repeatedly which was objectively racist, homophobic and misogynistic. And, largely, these have been the same posters who repeatedly claimed that quotes of what he said were “cherry picked” when that’s exactly what they’re doing, or “out of context” even when no context could ever possibly make many of the things he said acceptable to any decent person. The completely unwarranted ad hominem attacks are also particularly objectionable and evidence this determination to try to continue to stoke division, just as Kirk did.

Sadly there is no reasoning with such people because they don’t WANT reason, they hate it. They make any objective or rational discussion impossible deliberately because the posters doing this this aren’t interested in that, rather see this as a point scoring exercise between imagined “sides” and are determined to believe that everyone who doesn’t agree with them “is on the other side”, hence the silly comments about “left” and “right” etc. when most normal people subscribe to neither of these extremes.

It is all very depressing and paints a bleak picture of the possibility of a future where general consensus and balance and a reasonably harmonious society can be reestablished, especially as the extremists of all kinds are continuously ramping up their efforts to recruit more people into their cultish ideologies.

Thank you. Depressingly, I think we have to accept you are right, despite best efforts to try, but I suppose also that giving up on rational discussion and facts is precisely what such people want us to do so that they can continue with their extremism unchallenged. 😔

I think he mostly talked about DEI and affirmative action from what I can gather.

Question for the anti Kirk posters, do you think its possible to be firmly anti affirmative action and not racist? Or is it an inherently racist position?

@TheClaaaw I know, it is a conundrum. I think we likely feel a sense of responsibility too, to challenge and therefore not enable/ appear complicit with certain views and rhetoric. I am sure many other posters have taken something positive away from your posts on this thread and it does encourage perspective taking and a certain amount of flexibility in thinking.

I suppose it comes down to, where do you draw a line? The same statements are used repeatedly, no matter what your response is. I know we’ve both (and many others) have put time and effort into thoughtful, considered and reasoned argument only for it to be dismissed with a ‘fantasist’ or ‘whatever’. At this point we can only assume people do not wish to engage in good faith, they want to be right. Such intransigence and cognitive dissonance cannot be reasoned with, as this thread and sadly others, illustrate.

Sometimes the more you engage with the above, it seems to amplify the irrationality and people tend to back their original position ever harder. I don’t know what the answer is, but it certainly isn’t more lazy labelling and stereotyping as we’ve seen in these threads; the obsession with people being ‘left’ or ‘right’. It’s all polarising and divisive. But as I’ve said many times this week, having to explain why certain beliefs and statements are racist and misogynistic when posters don’t believe ‘prowling blacks’ is racist, and that forced pregnancies aren’t misogynistic - is impossible. Let them continue with their wilful blindness. Energy is best spent on engaging with avenues of actual change at this point.