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The Myth of White Innocence Got Charlie Kirk Killed

If he’d been speaking in Chicago, Los Angeles, or anywhere with lots of people of color, they’d have checked the rooftops

5 min readSep 25, 2025

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I know some of you don’t want to hear it, so much so that the title of this essay will almost certainly send you into some stratospheric level of rage.

But just because you’re reluctant to admit the truth doesn’t make it any less accurate.

Charlie Kirk is dead today, first and foremost because of the horrific actions of Tyler Robinson, of course. But the conditions that made Robinson’s act possible must also be considered.

And one of the most important has gone almost entirely unremarked upon: namely, the fact that Kirk was speaking in a place where no one would have expected him to face much danger, and as such, his people didn’t secure the surroundings nearly as tightly as they would have elsewhere.

After all:

  • It was Utah, one of the nation’s whitest and most conservative states.
  • It was Orem, a very white and conservative part of that state, and
  • It was Utah Valley University, a very white and mostly conservative school.

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Tim Wise
Tim Wise

Written by Tim Wise

Critical race theorist and author of nine books on racism and racial inequity in the U.S.

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