I usually don\u2019t have morbid hypothetical scenarios running through my head.<\/p>\n
But the airbrushing of Charlie Kirk\u2019s legacy by millions of mostly white Americans has left me wondering how differently they might react if someone like Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, or Louis Farrakhan, were shot to death.<\/p>\n
I doubt this crowd \u2014 both the Kirk enthusiasts and the men and women who say they \u201cdidn\u2019t always agree\u201d with the Arlington Heights native\u2019s extreme, right-wing worldview \u2014 would fall into the same amnesiac trance if asked to articulate the offending traits of either Black personality.<\/p>\n
While many people have tiptoed around Kirk\u2019s anti-Black, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant, transphobic, homophobic and misogynist sound bites<\/a>, they likely wouldn\u2019t hesitate in identifying antisemitism as the central source of the musician\u2019s and Nation of Islam leader\u2019s notoriety.<\/p>\n Ye<\/a> and Farrakhan\u2019s<\/a> bigoted statements, which they have been rightfully criticized for, would quickly bubble to the surface of every ensuing posthumous profile and roundtable discussion \u2014 the consensus being the men\u2019s hate ultimately tainted their talent and whatever goodwill they had to offer.<\/p>\n Maybe in the case of Ye, his obituary would include a perfunctory mention of his odious \u201cslavery was a choice\u201d quote and the principled \u201cGeorge Bush doesn\u2019t care about Black people\u201d<\/a> declaration he cried out during a Hurricane Katrina concert fundraiser two decades ago.<\/p>\n Ye and Farrakhan\u2019s fatherhood won\u2019t placate their sins when they no longer walk the earth.<\/p>\n There will be no breathless write-ups in the mainstream press<\/a>.<\/p>\n There will be no sports stadium tributes.<\/p>\n And if Ye and Farrakhan\u2019s lives were ever taken by another African American, many elected leaders wouldn\u2019t be devastated that the alleged perpetrator turned out to be \u201cone of us\u201d<\/a> and not the foreigner<\/a> they had prayed for. Then, the conversation would quickly pivot to the challenges of \u201cBlack-on-Black crime.\u201d<\/p>\n To be clear, I am not making light of or condoning Kirk\u2019s killing. I also don\u2019t want any harm to come to Ye, Farrakhan or anyone else.<\/p>\n Gun violence doesn\u2019t discriminate and continues to chip away at our sense of security, destroying countless families in its wake. This harsh reality continually stares in our faces, in spite of the lawmakers who pretend they don\u2019t see or are OK with the bloodshed.<\/p>\n For those of us who belong to marginalized groups, the aftermath of Kirk\u2019s fatal shooting also serves as a reminder that many fellow Americans share his disturbing stances or are willing to normalize what came out of his mouth.<\/p>\n Bigotry can be window dressed as \u201cpolitical\u201d speech if you\u2019re the right color and a member of an accepted faith, particularly Christianity.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m not surprised some liberals who wanted the racially and religiously diverse pro-Palestinian protests to disappear on college campuses agree with Ezra Klein\u2019s assertion that Kirk \u201cwas practicing politics the right way\u201d when he turned up at universities.<\/p>\n As a Brown Muslim woman, I\u2019m uncomfortably familiar with these double standards.<\/p>\n For a long time after 9\/11, Muslims in America faced scrutiny for what they didn\u2019t say. If a Muslim halfway around world was accused of detonating a bomb, killing civilians, demands to apologize and condemn the slaughter flooded in.<\/p>\n Many mosque elders obediently complied to prove we were good, peace-loving citizens. Years later, younger generations, who came of age at the height of the \u201cWar on Terror,\u201d pointed out the dangers of condemning atrocities we had nothing to do with.<\/p>\n Such condemnations only exacerbate Islamophobia, as they \u201cinvolve the tacit acceptance of a racist narrative in which Muslims are collectively presumed guilty of harboring violent tendencies and terrorist sympathies unless proven otherwise,\u201d a 2023 research<\/a> paper concluded.<\/p>\n The condemnations, the author stated, also \u201ckeep the focus on Muslims and violence so that white and white Christian Americans and Europeans need not come to terms with their own violent past and their ongoing complicity in a violent world order.\u201d<\/p>\n The author, Todd Green<\/a>, by the way, is white and a former Presbyterian minister,<\/a> for those readers who want me to condemn his scholarly work.<\/p>\n I thought Muslims were done being forced to play this ridiculous game of condemnation.<\/p>\n