MIDWEEK MUSNGS: HATE BEGETS HATE
Tuesday evening I attended my first Political Animal Club gathering with political pundit and analyst Matthew Dowd. Yep, the same guy who MSNBC just fired for his comments re: the murder of Charlie Kirk. Ironic that I have been re-editing my summation of Dowd's talk a couple of days now, and then yesterday this shooting occurred.
Below my words, I have also included an article from the Hungry Black Man, much more articulate than mine. Dowd's message and his are the same.
Matthew Dowd had an unorthodox beginning to his presentation as he asked us to take the hand of a person sitting next to us, close our eyes for a minute to visualize ourselves with family/friends living in a time of peace and what that would look like. You could have heard a pin drop. A tear rolled down my cheek. A calmness replaced the once frenetic chatter.
Dowd began stating we need the TRUTH and to understand, we search for Truth with our own prejudices.
History is cyclical, composed of economic, technological, multicultural, and institutional changes. We need to recognize we are in crisis and need a new united vision full of values. Truth is in our heads and our hearts. Hate perpetuates hate and our efforts need to start at home with love. Love thy neighbor, as change needs to start from the bottom up versus the top down.
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| L) Matthew Dowd (R) senior editor Ar Dem Gazette Rex Nelson |
93 year old Annie Abrams, long-time civil rights activist, was also in attendance with comments and her telephone booklet of legislator numbers, of which she has distributed 1000 copies from her front porch. May we use those numbers to be heard.
"The Hungry Black Man
America lost Charlie Kirk a couple hours ago, violently, tragically, and in a moment that was recorded, and is circulating socially. I will not post it because it’s absolutely horrific.
Charlie was not a figure of grace or empathy. History will not remember him as a voice of unity or a champion of justice. He will be remembered for the words he chose, words that often wounded and divided. As he lay bleeding out onstage, those words, once weapons, became dust.
When he was shot, he was speaking about one of America’s deepest wounds: mass shootings. When asked about school shootings, his response was not measured compassion but deflection. “Counting or not counting gang violence?” he said, as if the grief of families who send their children to school only to bury them could be minimized by a technicality. And then, almost instantly, a shot rang out. He fell, his voice instantly silenced.
This is not eulogy-flattery. This is memory.
We remember the things he said about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “MLK was awful. He’s not a good person.” We remember his calculation on gun violence: “I think it’s worth … some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.” These are not the words of healing, not the words of unity. And yet they, too, are part of the ledger he leaves behind.
So what do we do with a legacy like this? First, we tell the truth. We acknowledge what he said, how he said it, and the hurt it caused. Second, we resist the temptation to let violence beget violence. For if this act tells us anything, it is that political violence has become a siren call to the unhinged, a spark they would gladly use to ignite the tinderbox of racial and class resentment. Today it was a conservative voice silenced. Tomorrow, it could just as easily be a progressive one. We must not let this become the currency of politics.
We should also understand the warning buried in this moment. What we say matters. How we live matters. The words we choose, the causes we defend, the way we treat one another, these become the bricks of our legacy. Kirk’s words were often sharp, sometimes cruel, but they are now etched into his memory as surely as his death. Let the rest of us take note: legacies should be rooted in love, in justice, in equality, not in division or deflection.
Rest, if you can, Mr. Kirk. May your final act teach us something lasting: that even in grief, we are called to choose better."
