Isa Abbott, Opinion Editor–

Every week, my dance class starts in a circle, where we are asked to give a gesture that goes with our name (this activity is to help everyone get to know one another). Two weeks ago, however, the professor asked that instead of a gesture, we give our name and a color that matches how we feel without any explanation. 

Purple was the first color that came to mind. 

I could not understand why, but that morning I had been particularly emotionally unaware; unable to comprehend what exactly it was that I felt. I held this heaviness and grief in my chest, and at the same time, this anger for the world and for things I not only lacked to understand, but also control. 

The day before, I was hit with the same news as everyone: Charlie Kirk had died from a gunshot at Utah Valley University. The best way to describe my reaction was “shaken.” I began to experience slight nausea and anxiety about the situation. I think a part of me began to build a deep rage for all the things he had said and all of the violence he had created, and for my lack of understanding of how and why someone could possibly have so much hatred for people who are different. I was so angry that he got away with it, too, calling it “freedom of speech.” Of course, I was also angry that someone used a bullet to end what he had been doing. Gun violence is never the answer and never how we stop people from doing things we don’t like.  

My response to this situation is that violence should not be met with violence. For those first 24 hours, it felt as though everything on my social media feed was just about “prays for Charlie Kirk and his family” or “no one deserves to be killed for speaking out about their different views.” While I agree that his death should not have been on account of his tour, let alone by any form of violence or murder, let us get one thing straight: Charlie Kirk was not using freedom of speech and “only voicing his opinions”; he was verbally violent. 

Freedom of speech is typically used in a way for the public to voice their concerns and thoughts to the government and its citizens in a peaceful manner to provide checks and balances to society and its governing powers. Here, there is a clear distinction between everything Kirk has voiced and freedom of speech. 

One recent example is Kirk’s efforts to voice the idea that transgender people are responsible for many shootings. This is not an act of freedom of speech, but rather a form of harassment and violent intent. Many people soak up the words of the media too easily, which can cause uneducated biases against other people who are different from ourselves. In this case, if we do not look into more than one perspective and one news source, we become easily desensitized toward a certain community. 

Some biases against a community grow to be so large that they lead to bullying at school or online, which, unfortunately, has caused many suicides among younger people. In addition, it can lead to physical violence that causes either trauma, permanent physical and mental damage, or death. This is how one of many of Kirk’s arguments is quite the opposite of freedom of speech, but rather violent speech. 

If we are comparing this strong bias that Kirk and many people in America have of transgender people to their other common values, it is inherently hypocritical and illogical. For example, you cannot be pro-life and also support little to no gun regulation. You also cannot be pro-life, but be picky about whose life matters more: a child at school, a person who speaks Spanish, someone who is transgender, or a white conservative man.  

The reason why I bring this up is because the immense amount of “prayers for Charlie Kirk” and comments on how “no one deserves this” were far greater than the condolences toward the students in the recent school shooting and the man who was shot and killed by ICE within the same 24 hours. 

A school shooting took place in Evergreen High School in Colorado, in which three students were shot and hospitalized. In addition, two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. immigration agents may stop and detain anyone they suspect to be “illegal.” The forms of “illegal” identification wer labeled as speaking Spanish or having brown skin. Later that week, Silverio Villegas-Gonzales was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Chicago for resisting arrest after the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz.” This operation was enforced to increase deportations in Chicago, in which the arrests started two days after the Supreme Court’s ruling.  

Again, what is ironic about each of these situations is that all of the shooters were either from a conservative background, in full support of border enforcement, or identified as white supremacist extremists. These are not, in fact, people who are transgender or “radical.” These are people who are pro-guns and pro-violence, and the problems at hand are not “leftists” or transgender people; it is the fact that people consider anti-shooting and anti-gun violence stances to be “radical.” It is not a radical idea to believe that school shootings should be stopped. It is not a radical idea to believe that guns do create violence. And it is not a radical idea to believe that people should not be killed for their legal status, skin color, and language. 

Before the identification of Kirk’s assassin, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) suggested that his killer was transgender and demanded that they receive the death penalty. After the killer was identified as a cisgender, white male who had a conservative family background, Mace said that she will pray for him to find Jesus. This is terrifying and mirrors political and ideological ignorance, and how it can easily impact legal action violently. 

In one of my classes, we read an excerpt by Elizabeth Bruenig, called “Sin and Redemption in America’s Death Chambers”. One of the quotes that stood out to me was, “capital punishment relies on judgment”. The essential argument of Bruenig’s writing is that capital punishment should end, including the death penalty. The reason I mention this quote is that it similarly highlights how much one’s judgment impacts the world and its legal systems. In addition, one’s bias of race and gender impacts how others are treated and seen.

In my time of reflection, it is still unclear to me why and how people continue to motivate hatred and violence against minorities and people who have different values and lifestyles. Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be so violently killed, but let us not forget that neither did any child at school, immigrants, people of color, women, or anyone who is LGBTQ+. 

On Sept. 11, I walked past the flagpole in front of Slayter Hall and noticed it at half-mast. Not for the people who died on 9/11, not for the children who had died in school shootings, and not for the immigrants who have been killed by ICE, but for Charlie Kirk. How long would the flag be at half-mast if it were for every single child who has died due to gun violence? How long would it be up for every person who died on 9/11 or for the democratic lawmaker who was recently murdered? None of that matters when the government is in the hands of privilege and ignorance. But it should always matter. It does matter.

So there I sit in the circle of my dance class. I was red with political anger and frustration, and blue with grief and loss for every person lost in the last week and throughout history due to violence. 

“I’m Isa, and I’m feeling purple today.” 

This is why. 

Isa Abbott ‘28 is a politics and public affairs major from Indianapolis.