The day before he was horrifically murdered, Charlie Kirk sent me a direct message on X.
He and I had been sparring publicly over the killing of a Ukrainian refugee and its relationship to race.
He said the gruesome killing of a White woman by a Black man was motivated solely by anti-White hatred. I denounced those comments on CNN as unfounded. He went on TV and denounced MY denunciation. Then he unleashed a firehose of tweets, challenging my argument.
Kirk’s pushback sparked an online torrent of racist death threats against me, the likes of which I have rarely seen.
Things were seriously heading off the rails.
Then — in the middle of all this — Charlie Kirk reached out.
Charlie Kirk’s surprising message
He invited me to come on his show to talk with him. He wrote:
“Hey, Van, I mean it, I’d love to have you on my show to have a respectful conversation about crime and race. I would be a gentleman as I know you would be as well. We can disagree about the issues agreeably.”
A direct message from conservative activist Charlie Kirk to Van Jones, a day before Kirk was shot and killed at a speaking event. – Van Jones
Unfortunately, before I could even respond, Charlie Kirk was killed — seemingly assassinated for the words he’s spoken, though the killer’s exact motives are still being investigated.
I’ve taken issue with many of those words — sometimes strongly — but never his right to speak them. Never his right to express those views and then go home to his family. That is a sacred American value.
Condemning murder is not hard
So it was not hard for me to condemn his murder — immediately, without qualification and in unconditional terms.
That afternoon I tweeted:
“Today’s attack on Charlie Kirk is absolutely horrifying and heartbreaking. He fought with words not weapons. There is no place for political violence in our society and those responsible must be swiftly brought to justice. My prayers are with Charlie’s loved ones, the traumatized students at Utah Valley University and all who have been impacted by this senseless act.”
Political murder is wrong, period. I was born in 1968 — into a country being torn apart by riots and assassinations. I don’t want to go back to that. None of us should.
In fact: Kirk’s murder gives us all reason to come back to the table for dialogue. There is a rising tide of political violence that has already swept away his life and many others’ lives, from both the Left and the Right.
Violence like this should compel people in both parties to turn down the heat, seek common ground and look for off-ramps from the vitriol — as Kirk was doing with me, the day before he died.
Charlie Kirk opposed censorship and ‘civil war’
But instead, the opposite is happening. People are using his horrific assassination to call for MORE violence — justifying murder or even calling for a civil war! Government officials are using his killing as an excuse to censor and silence dissent.
Hold up! Wait a minute!
That’s NOT the way Charlie Kirk handled disagreement. Not at all.
When our public dispute started going sideways, what was Kirk’s response?
He pushed for more conversation, not more silencing or censorship.
He pushed for more civility, not more stridency or venom.
Whatever you think of Kirk’s legacy, that simple fact is commendable — and it’s something that everyone should uphold and seek to replicate.
If you are on the Right, please don’t give up on open debate and dialogue. Charlie didn’t. I won’t. And I make the same plea to folks on the Left.
Don’t get tricked into violence
And whatever side you’re on, don’t let yourself get whipped up into believing that political violence is the way. Let’s be real: Most of the folks online calling for murder and mayhem couldn’t win a fight with a housefly. They pretend to be badasses who are ready to storm the barricades.
Most aren’t.
And for what it’s worth: You might think we HATE each other on TV and online. But for the most part, we don’t. We debate hard. We try to win elections. Along the way, we sometimes piss each other off.
But we don’t wish harm on each other. We don’t want more bloodshed in our country. We don’t want more funerals in America. Most pundits and influencers are NOT trying to spark some kind of civil war. We are just doing our jobs and fulfilling our callings, as best we can. That’s all.
When things get out of hand, usually somebody calls somebody. We try to talk. We seek repair. Because we each just want to be able to say our piece and get home to our kids. That’s it.
Please — everyone — consider taking a similar approach in your own place and space. Let’s get off this scary path that we are on. Let’s resolve — in Charlie Kirk’s words — to “disagree about the issues agreeably.”
The right way to fight
For all our differences, neither Charlie nor I ever wanted to see the other person harmed or silenced.
To the contrary: I would have wanted to beat Charlie Kirk intellectually — by out-debating him. I would have wanted to see progressives beat him politically — by out-organizing him.
Neither task would have been easy. Charlie Kirk was one of the best debaters and organizers of our age. But that would have been the right way for us to handle our differences.
That’s what was on the table when he messaged me on Tuesday of last week.
Unfortunately, a coward’s bullet robbed conservatives of a rising talent, progressives of a worthy opponent and a family of a loving father.
In the wake of that murder, Americans have a choice to make.
We can choose to go the way of more violence, more outrage and more censorship — if we want to.
But if we choose censorship and civil war, we cannot blame that choice on Charlie Kirk!
From his last 24 hours, I have the proof that he wanted to go a very different way.
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