Stop Scolding Us: Why the Elite Response to Political Violence Is Dangerous

Sep 23, 2025

The talking heads are at it again. Podcasters, pundits, and opinion leaders across the spectrum are wagging their fingers at anyone who didn't perform the required grief ritual over Charlie Kirk's death. They're demanding we prove our humanity through acceptable reactions, our worthiness through perfect behavior.

I'm done with it. And you should be too.

💔 The Violence You Refuse to See

To all of you sitting in your studios and writing your think pieces: I know you feel scared. I see your fear. But I refuse to watch footage of Kirk's shooting because I see enough violence in my actual life.

"I see the violence women suffer under our broken medical system. The violence of always feeling like you're failing the people you've spent your life trying to help. The violence of understanding that problems are so vast and systemic that you can only do your small part and somehow sleep at night knowing it's not nearly enough."

(Photo: Shutterstock)

You are scared because you recognize yourself in Kirk—another person who shares opinions for a living, another political narrator. But do not let your personal fear be the thing that causes you to belittle and dehumanize other people. Because that's exactly what you're doing when you scold us for our reactions.

You are not the first group to be targeted. Reproductive health clinicians live with the constant threat of losing their livelihoods, getting killed, being ostracized. There's professional danger, legal danger, financial danger. Native women face murder rates ten times the national average on some reservations. Pregnant women are murdered at higher rates than they die from medical complications³. Black women face femicide rates four times higher than the national average⁴.

"People face mortal risk for their work, their identity, their mere existence every single day. That's part of living in this country. If you haven't understood that before, it's time you understand it now."

🎭 The Battered Wife Fallacy

What you're selling us is what I call the "battered wife fallacy"—the lie that if we just behave perfectly, if we just find the exact right way to respond, if we don't make the other side mad, if we capitulate and make ourselves smaller and smaller until we literally evaporate from the world, then and only then will we get to preserve this system that at best views us as subhuman and at worst wants to completely eliminate us.

And then you want us to be grateful for that advice.

"This is the same playbook they always use on minorities, on women, on anyone without institutional power: convince us that our survival depends on perfect behavior while our oppressors face no such constraints."

⚡ The Reality Check You Need

Let me disabuse you of some illusions:

Donald Trump is going to do what he's going to do. The only real question—and he's going to find ways to kill people and break laws because he's told us from the beginning—is how hard people are going to fight him to reach his goals.

He wants to kill Black people. That's been his dream, his life's goal. Hispanic people, add them to the list. Jewish people seem okay for now. Muslim people, probably not so much. And he wants to subjugate women. These are known things. Let's stop pretending this isn't his agenda.

"The only thing that's actually undecided is how much resistance he'll face."

So I don't understand how scolding people for genuine reactions—not out of lack of empathy, but out of a sense that life has consequences—helps anything. When I first heard about Kirk's death, I didn't feel happy. But I felt a reminder that actions have consequences. And I felt something else: not everyone who gets hurt is a good person.

💭 Where's Your Empathy for the Rest of Us?

When you see children, women, babies, poor people, immigrants, Black people, Hispanic people—when you always see us being the ones who get hurt, it starts to feel like the whole world is against you.

So let Charlie Kirk have the legacy he worked for. I'm not celebrating his death. I empathize with his children, because they didn't choose this. His wife made a choice to build a life with this man, and frankly, I don't understand how that coexists with being a good mother. She had agency. There's only so much empathy I have to go around.

Because where was this energy for everyone else?

"Do you know how many people have been shot since Kirk died? In 2024, there were 16,576 firearm deaths in the United States (excluding suicides)—that's 45 people every single day. Where are their vigils? Where's the empathy for their families, their kids, their spouses?"

Since Kirk's death three days ago, approximately 135 more people have died from gun violence¹. Many of those people never hurt anyone. But somehow, one political commentator's death gets wall-to-wall coverage while 135 other deaths barely register as statistics.

🌃 What Actually Keeps Me Up at Night

You want to know what makes me sick to my stomach? Let me tell you about the violence you refuse to see.

🪶 The Invisible Epidemic

Native American women being systematically hunted, sexually brutalized, and murdered for decades. More than four in five Native women—84.3%—have experienced violence in their lifetime⁵. On some reservations, Native women face murder rates more than ten times the national average⁶.

"In 2016 alone, 5,712 Native women and girls were reported missing. Only 116 of those cases made it into the federal missing persons database⁷."

When Native women's bodies are found, they are 135% more likely to remain unidentified than women of other races⁸.

Think about that. Native women disappear and die at rates so extreme they defy comprehension. But there are no think pieces about how we should respond to their deaths. No lectures about appropriate grief. No demands for empathy toward their killers.

🤰 The Pregnancy Death Trap

The fact that homicide is now the leading cause of death for pregnant women should keep you up at night.

Not high blood pressure. Not hemorrhage. Not infection. Murder.

The latest national data reveals that pregnant and postpartum women face a 3.62 per 100,000 live births homicide rate. There are 16% more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women. For pregnant teenagers, that risk explodes to 6.67 times higher.

Let me put that in perspective: if you're a pregnant Black teenager in America, you are nearly seven times more likely to be murdered than if you weren't pregnant. Seven times.

"64.8% of these murders happen at home. The place women are supposed to be safest. 69.2% involve firearms—often the same guns that domestic violence advocates have been trying to get out of abusers' hands for decades."

📊 The Racial Reality

The numbers tell a story of systematic abandonment. Black pregnant women face a 12.47 per 100,000 births homicide rate compared to 2.12 for white women¹⁴. That's nearly a six-fold difference.

"When Black women get pregnant, their risk of being murdered jumps by 39% ¹⁵. Think about what that means. The very act of carrying life—something we're told is sacred—becomes a death sentence at rates that should shock us into action."

But instead of addressing this crisis, we got decades of politicians like Charlie Kirk telling women that motherhood was their highest calling while simultaneously supporting policies that made pregnant women sitting ducks for the men who would kill them.

📍 The Geographic Pattern of Abandonment

This violence isn't random. It's concentrated. States with restrictive abortion access have 75% higher rates of pregnancy-associated homicide¹⁶. The same states that claim to protect life are the ones where pregnant women are most likely to be murdered.

"When you strip women of reproductive autonomy, you don't protect life. You create more death. The data proves it."

🏥 The Healthcare System's Deadly Blindness

Here's what really gets me: homicide now exceeds all traditional maternal mortality causes by 2-fold, yet our entire maternal health system pretends violence doesn't exist.

For decades, we tracked maternal deaths from hemorrhage, infection, and high blood pressure while ignoring the fact that pregnant women were being shot and beaten to death at epidemic rates. We didn't count those deaths as "maternal mortality" because they weren't medical complications.

"But pregnancy isn't a medical condition that exists in a vacuum. When a woman gets pregnant, she doesn't just face medical risks—she faces social, economic, and relationship pressures that can turn deadly."

The man who seemed supportive when she wasn't pregnant might become violent when she is. The family that accepted her choices might suddenly demand control over her body. The community that claimed to value motherhood might abandon her when she needs support most.

We finally have the first complete national data on this crisis, covering 2018-2019. Before that, we were working with partial data, regional studies, and estimates. Meaning for decades, we systematically undercounted and under-responded to the leading cause of death for pregnant women.

"How many women died because we refused to see the pattern? How many could have been saved if we'd integrated violence prevention into prenatal care from the beginning?"

🔗 The Charlie Kirk Connection

This brings us back to Charlie Kirk and why his death doesn't deserve our tears.

Kirk spent his career promoting policies and attitudes that directly contributed to this crisis. He advocated for abortion bans that trap women with violent partners. He promoted "traditional family values" that prioritize male control over women's safety. He dismissed domestic violence as a feminist myth while supporting unrestricted gun access for the very men killing pregnant women.

"Every statistic I've shared—the 3.62 homicide rate, the 6-fold racial disparity, the 75% increase in restrictive states—represents the deadly consequences of the worldview Kirk championed and amplified."

So when people say "I can't believe someone could be killed just for their political speech," I want them to understand: Kirk's "political speech" killed women. It created the conditions that made homicide the leading cause of death for pregnant women. It normalized the violence that's claiming lives at rates we're only now beginning to document.

"His words weren't abstractions. They were policy blueprints that became laws that became death sentences."

✊ Your Responsibility

Everyone's actual responsibility right now is making sure people understand what we're actually facing. Not the sanitized version where "political speech" exists in a clean debate-space, but the version where pregnant teenagers are 6.67 times more likely to be murdered and firearms are present in 69.2% of pregnancy-associated homicides.

If you want to channel your energy about Kirk's death into something useful, start here: Check on every pregnant woman in your life and make sure they're safe. The statistics show that intimate partner violence increases during pregnancy for 1 in 6 women¹⁹, and the presence of a gun increases the risk of homicide by 500% ²⁰.

Ask the hard questions: Is her partner controlling? Has he become more possessive since the pregnancy? Does he have access to weapons? Does she have somewhere safe to go?

"Because right now, while you're writing think pieces about Charlie Kirk's legacy, pregnant women are being murdered primarily at home by intimate partners with firearms. That's what will make a difference when Trump decides to escalate his war on women's autonomy—having communities that recognize the warning signs and act."

Being constantly scolded by people who helped create this mess doesn't accomplish any of that.

The supremacy you're communicating is staggering. You're demanding that we—the people Kirk spent his career targeting for elimination—perform empathy for our oppressor while 45 Americans die from gun violence every day, and you say nothing. While Native women are murdered at rates ten times the national average and you stay silent. While pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than to die from medical complications and you write no think pieces.

"But one wealthy white man who built his career on cruelty gets killed, and suddenly you're the arbiters of appropriate grief."

What in God's name is wrong with you?

🎯 The Bottom Line

You are so disconnected from actual human suffering that you've made a political commentator's death more important than the daily violence faced by the people he spent his career targeting.

I've had to unsubscribe from people I once respected because this response has shown me just how far removed they are from the reality the rest of us live in.

"Your fear is valid. Your platform is not more important than our lives."

Stop scolding us. Start listening.