While on Instagram a few days into the aftermath of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk’s death, I came across a video by professional counsellor Jeff Guenther, who was talking about how “it’s okay not to feel sympathy for Charlie Kirk”.
This was a statement he recognised as being controversial, but, since it had piqued my interest, I gave it a listen.
I should also say that before his death I had no knowledge of who Kirk was. But I know of people like him, and my position on them is very clear: I am repelled by their regressive thinking because I am a black, feminist woman, but mostly because I subscribe to enlightenment and evolution and not ignorance and devolution.
But back to Guenther. He went on to explain that “empathy is a natural human response but it isn’t something you can force. Yes, Charlie Kirk was a human being, a husband and a father, and it may be easy to connect with that part of his humanity…
“But if you don’t feel empathy for him because of the harm he caused, the way he mocked marginalised people and the culture of cruelty he helped build, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It means your empathy has boundaries, and that’s not cruelty – that’s just healthy boundaries.
“Empathy means feeling with someone. Compassion means wishing freedom from suffering. You might not feel empathy for someone who hurt you, but you can still choose compassion in the sense of ‘I don’t wish suffering on you, but I also don’t feel sad about your pain’.
“Extending endless empathy to someone who is actively harming you or people like you isn’t noble. It’s self-abandonment… For marginalised people and communities, constantly empathising with people who mock and erase you can turn into internalised oppression.”
I agree with Guenther in that the death of Kirk leaves me cold because he and people like him do not see value and humanity in all people. Instead, what they represent is hate and divisiveness, so empathising with them would indeed amount to self-abandonment.
What a moment of reflection on his death can instead be used for is to dismantle the altar of bigotry with which we are confronted. All it does is create division and acrimony, and we cannot be complicit in that for fear of reprisal from those who support Kirk and his ilk. As Guenther states, performative empathy is in fact more destructive to ourselves and the allyships we have with marginalised people.
I have no interest in acquiescing to conservative political sentiment for fear of bullying. That would be a betrayal of the values and principles of human rights to which I subscribe. It also bears repeating that it is possible to denounce Kirk’s murder while not being an apologist for his destructive political ideology.
We must remain true to the principle of humanity, which states that human rights are universal, inalienable, indivisible and interdependent. They are inherent to us all, regardless of nationality, sex, ethnic origin, colour, religion or language. No one is more deserving than another – and that means bigotry has absolutely no place in a progressive society. DM