"Charlie Kirk ... spent his entire life ... warning his generation not to follow current corrupting societal norms and encouraging them to form lasting marriages, have children only within a marriage, and re-embrace their Christian faith."
Those are all easily verifiable stances that Kirk took.
I think you read the article with no ounce of critical thinking or nous for debate, which is sad and not honoring Kirk.
But going back to the article—it frames Kirk’s project as one of “human flourishing,” rooted in family and Christian values. But for Black families who do embrace this framework—two-parent households, faith, marriage—what does Kirk say about them? Last I checked, his views on Black folks weren’t exactly sympathetic.
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
So what happens if that Black pilot also has a family? Within Kirk’s own lunacy framework, he’s still disqualified, still “suspect.” And if we’re going to talk about “uplifting” the Black family, then we have to be honest about who sits at the center of that unit biologically and otherwise: the Black woman. Here’s what Kirk has said about her:
“If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us! … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
Since we’re here to embrace all Black thought, give Hortense Spillers a read and her critique of the Moynihan Report. In it, Black women are always cast as the problem at the root of familial breakdown, always overexposed as symbols of pathology, never acknowledged as agents of continuity or survival. Kirk rehearses that same script. He can only imagine “flourishing” when Black women are diminished, erased, or treated as placeholders for white normativity.
I welcome pushback here, but to me this shows the contradiction in holding Kirk up as a moral model for Black family life. His rhetoric reveals exactly who is (and isn’t) counted within his vision of the family.
My guess is the context of the pilot quote would have made the difference in how you understood it.
So I'll try to explain. The majority of white men you meet you would NOT want as your pilot. (I use white men because they are the stereotype old time pilot). If choosing pilots were random, people would be deeply uncomfortable with their pilots each flight.
So what affirmative action hiring rules did, was they took people who are only 10-13 percent of the U.S. population and made it so each company needs to hire a certain number to meet requirements. The natural effect is that you hire unqualified people of that minority because there aren't enough to go around in all the companies needing to meet hiring requirements/incentives. It would not matter who the minority was. If white people were only 10-13 % of the population, and there were rules requiring they be hired to meet these rules, then when you got on a plane and saw a white person, you'd think "I hope that person is qualified!"
It's not about race, but about the system. I'd recommend watching a long interview that Charlie Kirk did. I have no particular one to recommend and have only watched a couple myself, but they didn't come across this way. So see what you think when every comment you hear him make is in context.
He seemed to have a warm heart toward people in what I heard. I would have expected him to to welcome my family.
I actually watched the interview. The whole analogy collapses the moment you think about how pilots are actually trained and hired. Pilots are not randomly selected from the population. To even sit in a cockpit, you need years of training, thousands of logged hours, FAA certifications, simulator tests, medical clearance, and ongoing re-certification. That process filters out anyone unqualified long before an airline ever considers hiring them.
Affirmative action doesn’t override any of that. It doesn’t mean “hire someone who can’t fly a plane.” It means that among qualified candidates—all of whom have already gone through that rigorous training —companies are expected not to exclude people because of their race. Airlines aren’t risking lawsuits, shareholder confidence, and thousands of lives by hiring unqualified pilots to meet some quota. That would be corporate suicide.
The real issue isn’t unqualified people getting jobs—it’s qualified people historically being shut out.
And just to add, there is zero data showing that U.S. airlines are actively hiring pilots who are unqualified to fly. None. Delta, United, American—every carrier has to comply with strict FAA standards. No one is sneaking uncertified pilots into cockpits to meet “quotas.” If Kirk or his defenders think otherwise, let them produce the data. So when Kirk says, “If I saw a Black pilot, I’d worry,” that’s not a comment about the system. That’s a racial projection. He doesn’t say, “If I saw a white pilot, I’d worry whether they were qualified.” Even though logically, if you think unqualified people are somehow being hired, that risk would apply across the board.
In fact, because white pilots make up the overwhelming majority of the profession (~85% overall; ~96% in commercial airlines), if there were any “unqualified hires,” statistically they’d be more likely to be white.
What Kirk is doing is simply recasting racist suspicion — not pointing to any factual risk.
yeah, it's kind of a teaser, full thing is here - lots of FOIA involved over a decade+. gotten little press but these sort of projects pervert the ideal of AA. Could go on - academics etc. I know best but this is pretty blatant and not in the interests of having great ATCs + diversifying a pipeline. It's just wild. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-faas-hiring
I disagree with your speculation about affirmative action/DEI (I think pressure to select and promote certain demographics CAN have a deleterious effect on employee quality - really any factor other than merit can) but I admire your open-mindedness and cordiality.
Well I think it's safe to say he was a Christian nationalist. Any religious nationalist in America is a problem, as we are not a religious nation. Say what you will about the various spiritual backgrounds of our Founding Fathers, the primary purpose for the Establishment Clause is to avoid favoring any one religion over another.
Kirk's message for families, while commendable, was always given within a Christian framework. Not only does that exclude huge swaths of the population, it also doesn't leave any room for non-Christian family values. Christianity doesn't own the family dynamic, it existed for tens of thousands of years before that faith ever came about.
I see the woke have flagged JFBT for continual trolling. You nay have to limit comments to paid subscribers so as not to have every post hijacked by the haters.
Let me preface my response by stating, every person bears the Imago Dei. It is a tragedy that C. Kirk was murdered. However, Mr. Qualls does not know or understand what Mr. Kirk’s deep message was. Please look at a more complete history of Mr. Kirk’s interview/podcast/social media posts. Mr. Kirk promoted division not flourishing. An ‘us vs. them’ mentality is not the core message of Christ. Mr. Qualls ‘cherry-picked’ the nice messages and omitted the dog-whistles and misinformation. Look at more of Mr. Kirk’s output; it reveals a darker message.
And....note there are no details, no quotes, nothing substantial, just vague warnings of a "darker message" if you really dig deep enough and get a True Gnostic Understanding of what Charlie Kirk was "really" saying.
I will be ignoring all the hateful trolls for my comment. Their points are irrelevant, cherry picked and meaningless. RIP Charlie Kirk (1993-2025). May his memory always be a blessing! I did not agree with Charlie on many issues be it abortion, gay marriage, gun control, immigration, education, the environment, labor unions, the social safety net, etc. He also didn't always use his best judgement and could at times be unnecessarily inflammatory, divisive and provocative. He was to be sure no saint. All that being said, he was warts and all, a good man and a great father and husband to his lovely wife and two precious children. His assassination is a great tragedy for this country. The values he stood for absolutely promoted human flourishing, and we should all take them to heart! The misguided and poorly crafted welfare policies of the 1970s drove the destruction of the black family which in turn contributed to the decline of black culture. The black elite and the legacy civil rights organizations tacitly accepted these new toxic norms and called anyone who dared criticize them either a racist or an Uncle Tom. But Charlie Kirk was not afraid to call them out and did so publicly and folks like Mark and Ike in the comments section, hated him for it and smeared him as a racist. But he was ultimately, 100% right. But his message doesn't just apply to and resonate with black people but universally with Americans of all colors. Black America and the country as whole need to embrace the institution of marriage, only having children within marriage and organized religion. I would also add Judeo-Christian values, the Protestant work ethic, patriotism, waiting until you're married to have sex, the nuclear family, personal responsibility, self-autonomy, staying away from gangs and drugs, eschewing hook-up culture and partying, focusing on your education, and being faithful to your spouse. Faith, family and education are the pathway to a brighter future for black America and for America as a whole. I'd like to thank Charlie Kirk for his invaluable work promoting these views and Take Charge for their invaluable work promoting them in the black community.
Charlie Kirk may not have been a good role model, but he did not deserve to be killed and he deserves better than to be made into the Horst Wessel of Nazism American Style.
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be killed. There is no justification for murder. Ever.
And Charlie Kirk should not be defined by his stupidest, crudest, and most ugly language. Nor should anyone.
But here are some words of Charlie Kirk:
- “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.” AmericaFest, December 2023 (a Turning Point USA event)
- “MLK was awful … He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.” AmericaFest, December 2023 (a Turning Point USA event)
- “Death penalties should be public, rapid, and televised.” Wikipedia (French edition), in a panel episode of The Charlie Kirk Show / ThoughtCrime (Feb 2024)
- “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” April 2023, at a Turning Point USA event in Salt Lake City
- “There's not much you can do, folks. You have a government that hates you, you have a traitor as the president. Buy weapons, I keep on saying that. Buy weapons. Buy ammo. if you go into a public place, bring a gun with you and if you live in a state that doesn't allow you to do it, I got nothing for you, man. Thank goodness in Arizona we can carry and we carry.” — October 12, 2023 — The Charlie Kirk Show (Salem Radio Networks)
- “Investigate first, define the crimes later” should be the order of the day. And for even the most minor of offenses, the rule should be: no charity, no goodwill, no mercy.”— How Should Republicans Respond To Fulton County? Indict The Left BY: CHARLIE KIRK ,AUGUST 15, 2023 in “The Federalist
If you can’t carry a gun Charlie Kirk had nothing for you.
If you believe that all people deserve dignity, food, healthcare, education, opportunity, and respectful attention (which sometimes means confrontations against your lies and provocations) Charlie Kirk seems to believe that you should be investigated and charged with whatever crime he could think of with no mercy, no charity, and no goodwill. What a guy!
People need better heroes than Charlie.
The GOP needs better heroes than Charlie.
Conservatives should be able to find a better hero or role model than Charlie.
You need a better role model than Charlie.
And it says something about any movement or person who thinks they need Charlie Kirk as a rallying point.
Charlie Kirk may not have been a good role model, but he did not deserve to be killed and he deserves better than to be made into the Horst Wessel of Nazism American Style.
It appear that Take Charge and Turning Point USA have exactly the same message of God, Family and Country. Charlie, when asked what does he want to be remembered by he said,"I wanna be remembered for courage for my faith. That that would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life."
A single falsehood accounts for most of the left's vicious tone deafness and subsequent confusion in the wake of Kirk's murder: they are so used to simply CLAIMING that person X or idea Y or organization Z is racist (far-right, misogynistic, etc.) that many of them have come to believe these lies. The ones who have been fooled by their own distortions are befuddled at the massive outpouring of public sympathy right not. The ones who have been lying intentionally are coming to understand that they no longer have the power or credibility to use slanderous labels of guilt-by-association effectively. That effectively terminates most of their strategies, in terms of public discourse. It really is about 80% of their communication on certain issues: mantras/slogans and fuzzy pejorative labels for the other side.
It's very simple: if Charlie Kirk had been far-right or a racist people wouldn't be flocking to his defense. They wouldn't be reacting with rage and disgust when leftists make such claims. There's no evidence that Charlie Kirk was a racist. The fact that everyone who asserts this avoids actually providing any evidence (or, like Karen Attiah, formerly of the WaPo, deliberately misquotes him) is abundantly informative.
If you can't provide any evidence for your dramatic ad hominem or if you have to lie about what a person said or believed in order to denigrate them, then you are probably on the wrong side. Progressives haven't internalized THAT yet, but they're waking up to the fact that they are less and less popular, and less and less credible. And less and less relevant.
Right on. Good message but (as you can see from the comments) people aren't even close to ready for the messenger. So many minds warped by the funhouse mirrors of identity.
His core values promoted male flourishing, and female servitude. Telling young girls not to go to college, or to only go to meet a man to marry, sets them up for total dependence on a husband who could easily disappear (either through divorce or death). This leaves them without the skills to support themselves and any children they may have. Convincing half the population to serve the other half - with the threat of eternal damnation for disobedience - is just plain wrong.
What is not correct?
The author said:
"Charlie Kirk ... spent his entire life ... warning his generation not to follow current corrupting societal norms and encouraging them to form lasting marriages, have children only within a marriage, and re-embrace their Christian faith."
Those are all easily verifiable stances that Kirk took.
I think you read the article with no ounce of critical thinking or nous for debate, which is sad and not honoring Kirk.
But going back to the article—it frames Kirk’s project as one of “human flourishing,” rooted in family and Christian values. But for Black families who do embrace this framework—two-parent households, faith, marriage—what does Kirk say about them? Last I checked, his views on Black folks weren’t exactly sympathetic.
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
So what happens if that Black pilot also has a family? Within Kirk’s own lunacy framework, he’s still disqualified, still “suspect.” And if we’re going to talk about “uplifting” the Black family, then we have to be honest about who sits at the center of that unit biologically and otherwise: the Black woman. Here’s what Kirk has said about her:
“If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us! … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
Since we’re here to embrace all Black thought, give Hortense Spillers a read and her critique of the Moynihan Report. In it, Black women are always cast as the problem at the root of familial breakdown, always overexposed as symbols of pathology, never acknowledged as agents of continuity or survival. Kirk rehearses that same script. He can only imagine “flourishing” when Black women are diminished, erased, or treated as placeholders for white normativity.
I welcome pushback here, but to me this shows the contradiction in holding Kirk up as a moral model for Black family life. His rhetoric reveals exactly who is (and isn’t) counted within his vision of the family.
My guess is the context of the pilot quote would have made the difference in how you understood it.
So I'll try to explain. The majority of white men you meet you would NOT want as your pilot. (I use white men because they are the stereotype old time pilot). If choosing pilots were random, people would be deeply uncomfortable with their pilots each flight.
So what affirmative action hiring rules did, was they took people who are only 10-13 percent of the U.S. population and made it so each company needs to hire a certain number to meet requirements. The natural effect is that you hire unqualified people of that minority because there aren't enough to go around in all the companies needing to meet hiring requirements/incentives. It would not matter who the minority was. If white people were only 10-13 % of the population, and there were rules requiring they be hired to meet these rules, then when you got on a plane and saw a white person, you'd think "I hope that person is qualified!"
It's not about race, but about the system. I'd recommend watching a long interview that Charlie Kirk did. I have no particular one to recommend and have only watched a couple myself, but they didn't come across this way. So see what you think when every comment you hear him make is in context.
He seemed to have a warm heart toward people in what I heard. I would have expected him to to welcome my family.
I actually watched the interview. The whole analogy collapses the moment you think about how pilots are actually trained and hired. Pilots are not randomly selected from the population. To even sit in a cockpit, you need years of training, thousands of logged hours, FAA certifications, simulator tests, medical clearance, and ongoing re-certification. That process filters out anyone unqualified long before an airline ever considers hiring them.
Affirmative action doesn’t override any of that. It doesn’t mean “hire someone who can’t fly a plane.” It means that among qualified candidates—all of whom have already gone through that rigorous training —companies are expected not to exclude people because of their race. Airlines aren’t risking lawsuits, shareholder confidence, and thousands of lives by hiring unqualified pilots to meet some quota. That would be corporate suicide.
The real issue isn’t unqualified people getting jobs—it’s qualified people historically being shut out.
And just to add, there is zero data showing that U.S. airlines are actively hiring pilots who are unqualified to fly. None. Delta, United, American—every carrier has to comply with strict FAA standards. No one is sneaking uncertified pilots into cockpits to meet “quotas.” If Kirk or his defenders think otherwise, let them produce the data. So when Kirk says, “If I saw a Black pilot, I’d worry,” that’s not a comment about the system. That’s a racial projection. He doesn’t say, “If I saw a white pilot, I’d worry whether they were qualified.” Even though logically, if you think unqualified people are somehow being hired, that risk would apply across the board.
In fact, because white pilots make up the overwhelming majority of the profession (~85% overall; ~96% in commercial airlines), if there were any “unqualified hires,” statistically they’d be more likely to be white.
What Kirk is doing is simply recasting racist suspicion — not pointing to any factual risk.
No. that's ideally what affirmative action *should* do - but that's not even at all close to how it was implemented. While this article is about ATCs, the same policies are at work for pilots. Really read it - appalling. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-a-quick-overview
Reading now! Will circle back. Thanks for this!
yeah, it's kind of a teaser, full thing is here - lots of FOIA involved over a decade+. gotten little press but these sort of projects pervert the ideal of AA. Could go on - academics etc. I know best but this is pretty blatant and not in the interests of having great ATCs + diversifying a pipeline. It's just wild. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-faas-hiring
I disagree with your speculation about affirmative action/DEI (I think pressure to select and promote certain demographics CAN have a deleterious effect on employee quality - really any factor other than merit can) but I admire your open-mindedness and cordiality.
Well I think it's safe to say he was a Christian nationalist. Any religious nationalist in America is a problem, as we are not a religious nation. Say what you will about the various spiritual backgrounds of our Founding Fathers, the primary purpose for the Establishment Clause is to avoid favoring any one religion over another.
Kirk's message for families, while commendable, was always given within a Christian framework. Not only does that exclude huge swaths of the population, it also doesn't leave any room for non-Christian family values. Christianity doesn't own the family dynamic, it existed for tens of thousands of years before that faith ever came about.
This analysis of Charlie Kirk isn't right
I see the woke have flagged JFBT for continual trolling. You nay have to limit comments to paid subscribers so as not to have every post hijacked by the haters.
Let me preface my response by stating, every person bears the Imago Dei. It is a tragedy that C. Kirk was murdered. However, Mr. Qualls does not know or understand what Mr. Kirk’s deep message was. Please look at a more complete history of Mr. Kirk’s interview/podcast/social media posts. Mr. Kirk promoted division not flourishing. An ‘us vs. them’ mentality is not the core message of Christ. Mr. Qualls ‘cherry-picked’ the nice messages and omitted the dog-whistles and misinformation. Look at more of Mr. Kirk’s output; it reveals a darker message.
And....note there are no details, no quotes, nothing substantial, just vague warnings of a "darker message" if you really dig deep enough and get a True Gnostic Understanding of what Charlie Kirk was "really" saying.
I will be ignoring all the hateful trolls for my comment. Their points are irrelevant, cherry picked and meaningless. RIP Charlie Kirk (1993-2025). May his memory always be a blessing! I did not agree with Charlie on many issues be it abortion, gay marriage, gun control, immigration, education, the environment, labor unions, the social safety net, etc. He also didn't always use his best judgement and could at times be unnecessarily inflammatory, divisive and provocative. He was to be sure no saint. All that being said, he was warts and all, a good man and a great father and husband to his lovely wife and two precious children. His assassination is a great tragedy for this country. The values he stood for absolutely promoted human flourishing, and we should all take them to heart! The misguided and poorly crafted welfare policies of the 1970s drove the destruction of the black family which in turn contributed to the decline of black culture. The black elite and the legacy civil rights organizations tacitly accepted these new toxic norms and called anyone who dared criticize them either a racist or an Uncle Tom. But Charlie Kirk was not afraid to call them out and did so publicly and folks like Mark and Ike in the comments section, hated him for it and smeared him as a racist. But he was ultimately, 100% right. But his message doesn't just apply to and resonate with black people but universally with Americans of all colors. Black America and the country as whole need to embrace the institution of marriage, only having children within marriage and organized religion. I would also add Judeo-Christian values, the Protestant work ethic, patriotism, waiting until you're married to have sex, the nuclear family, personal responsibility, self-autonomy, staying away from gangs and drugs, eschewing hook-up culture and partying, focusing on your education, and being faithful to your spouse. Faith, family and education are the pathway to a brighter future for black America and for America as a whole. I'd like to thank Charlie Kirk for his invaluable work promoting these views and Take Charge for their invaluable work promoting them in the black community.
Man please
Charlie Kirk may not have been a good role model, but he did not deserve to be killed and he deserves better than to be made into the Horst Wessel of Nazism American Style.
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be killed. There is no justification for murder. Ever.
And Charlie Kirk should not be defined by his stupidest, crudest, and most ugly language. Nor should anyone.
But here are some words of Charlie Kirk:
- “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.” AmericaFest, December 2023 (a Turning Point USA event)
- “MLK was awful … He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.” AmericaFest, December 2023 (a Turning Point USA event)
- “Death penalties should be public, rapid, and televised.” Wikipedia (French edition), in a panel episode of The Charlie Kirk Show / ThoughtCrime (Feb 2024)
- “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” April 2023, at a Turning Point USA event in Salt Lake City
- “There's not much you can do, folks. You have a government that hates you, you have a traitor as the president. Buy weapons, I keep on saying that. Buy weapons. Buy ammo. if you go into a public place, bring a gun with you and if you live in a state that doesn't allow you to do it, I got nothing for you, man. Thank goodness in Arizona we can carry and we carry.” — October 12, 2023 — The Charlie Kirk Show (Salem Radio Networks)
- “Investigate first, define the crimes later” should be the order of the day. And for even the most minor of offenses, the rule should be: no charity, no goodwill, no mercy.”— How Should Republicans Respond To Fulton County? Indict The Left BY: CHARLIE KIRK ,AUGUST 15, 2023 in “The Federalist
If you can’t carry a gun Charlie Kirk had nothing for you.
If you believe that all people deserve dignity, food, healthcare, education, opportunity, and respectful attention (which sometimes means confrontations against your lies and provocations) Charlie Kirk seems to believe that you should be investigated and charged with whatever crime he could think of with no mercy, no charity, and no goodwill. What a guy!
People need better heroes than Charlie.
The GOP needs better heroes than Charlie.
Conservatives should be able to find a better hero or role model than Charlie.
You need a better role model than Charlie.
And it says something about any movement or person who thinks they need Charlie Kirk as a rallying point.
Charlie Kirk may not have been a good role model, but he did not deserve to be killed and he deserves better than to be made into the Horst Wessel of Nazism American Style.
It appear that Take Charge and Turning Point USA have exactly the same message of God, Family and Country. Charlie, when asked what does he want to be remembered by he said,"I wanna be remembered for courage for my faith. That that would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life."
A single falsehood accounts for most of the left's vicious tone deafness and subsequent confusion in the wake of Kirk's murder: they are so used to simply CLAIMING that person X or idea Y or organization Z is racist (far-right, misogynistic, etc.) that many of them have come to believe these lies. The ones who have been fooled by their own distortions are befuddled at the massive outpouring of public sympathy right not. The ones who have been lying intentionally are coming to understand that they no longer have the power or credibility to use slanderous labels of guilt-by-association effectively. That effectively terminates most of their strategies, in terms of public discourse. It really is about 80% of their communication on certain issues: mantras/slogans and fuzzy pejorative labels for the other side.
It's very simple: if Charlie Kirk had been far-right or a racist people wouldn't be flocking to his defense. They wouldn't be reacting with rage and disgust when leftists make such claims. There's no evidence that Charlie Kirk was a racist. The fact that everyone who asserts this avoids actually providing any evidence (or, like Karen Attiah, formerly of the WaPo, deliberately misquotes him) is abundantly informative.
If you can't provide any evidence for your dramatic ad hominem or if you have to lie about what a person said or believed in order to denigrate them, then you are probably on the wrong side. Progressives haven't internalized THAT yet, but they're waking up to the fact that they are less and less popular, and less and less credible. And less and less relevant.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/radical-progressivism-outside-the
Right on. Good message but (as you can see from the comments) people aren't even close to ready for the messenger. So many minds warped by the funhouse mirrors of identity.
His core values promoted male flourishing, and female servitude. Telling young girls not to go to college, or to only go to meet a man to marry, sets them up for total dependence on a husband who could easily disappear (either through divorce or death). This leaves them without the skills to support themselves and any children they may have. Convincing half the population to serve the other half - with the threat of eternal damnation for disobedience - is just plain wrong.