By AFRO Managing Editor
Recently, I was alerted by the Washington Association of Black Journalists (WABJ) of the firing of Washington Post opinion columnist, Karren Attiah.
Her offense? Posts to her personal Bluesky social media account- including one, according to her termination letter from the Washington Post- that said “part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.”
In Attiah’s termination letter, Washington Post Chief HR Officer Wayne Connell said she exhibited “gross misconduct.”
With her firing, she joined a slew of now unemployed critics of Charlie Kirk, who have been fired for a variety of comments that range from simply reminding the country of Kirk’s own words to social media posts praising his gruesome Sept. 10 assassination. Some have been fired for pointing out that refusing to deeply mourn Kirk’s death is not the same as advocating for gun violence.
While no one should be making light of how Charlie Kirk died, we also certainly cannot create light from the darkness of how he lived.
Kirk was a White supremacist. Full stop. He spewed his brand of hatred every chance he could and encouraged others to go after those in the Black community willing to stand up against him and his ideals. I, for one, am not in the business of rewriting history. I am here to record it.
And what does the record say?
When it came to Black leaders such as former First Lady Michelle Obama and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Kirk –the community college dropout– said in July 2023 that these women “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
“You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously,” he said, speaking directly to the Black women who have helped shape this nation.
And on the topic of school shootings? In 2023, a year where the FBI logged 48 active shooter incidents, Kirk said the following:
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, 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.”
Kirk made that last comment just nine days after three children and three adults were killed at Covenant Presbyterian Church and School in Nashville, Tenn. by a shooter with a LeadStar Grunt-15 5.56mm/.223 caliber semi-automatic AR pistol and two other guns.
Maybe he truly believed in the insensitive comments he made that day, but regardless of the vile things on Kirk’s record, I was still shocked to my core when the grisly footage of his death found its way to my inbox last week.
You see, I – and many Black people – still have empathy. You know, that “made-up, New Age term that” that Kirk once said “does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics.” I don’t think anyone’s death should be social media fodder for the globe. But what we have seen in the last few days goes well beyond empathy for a human being brutally assassinated on the world stage.
Since Sept. 10 there has been a blatant revision of what Kirk stood for and the harm he was actively causing with his words at the time of his death. You can have empathy and still tell the truth.
But that’s not what America wants. This country and its leaders would much rather silence those unafraid to use their First Amendment right to speak out against those that push racist agendas, eugenics programming and homophobic beliefs.
I am appalled by the 47th president’s decision to lower the American flag to half staff for a racist, while leaving them flying high after the June 2025 assassinations of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. That said, I am not surprised that many want to hide away Kirk’s own words, and focus solely on the “Christian father and husband” who left behind few works to match the faith he proclaimed.
I am truly disgusted by the football teams (Tennessee Titans, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys to name a few) that held moments of silence as if Kirk advocated for something besides bigotry and division– but what more do you expect from an organization with “owners” that see the players (majority Black athletes) as property?
In a world where Florida middle schoolers are being taught that slaves benefited from chattel slavery, I am not shocked that conservatives and MAGA cult members are now going after anyone who reminds them of the ugly side of Charlie Kirk.
To be clear– the firings we are seeing are nothing more than a mass economic lynching– a stark reminder that anyone willing to speak out against the White supremacy better shut up or face consequences.
In lieu of legally swinging our bodies from trees and mutilating our bodies, they want to cut us off from the lifelines of healthcare tied to our jobs and a steady income (while the president wages tariff wars that drive up the cost of everything in and out of the grocery store).
I imagine the last two weeks have been incredibly hard for Black journalists, editors and publishers everywhere. But no matter how hard it is to keep up in this news cycle, we cannot grow so weary that we do not use our pen to speak up for those who are being silenced.
And so, the night before deadline day, I sit at my desk, writing. Speaking out, and ever more grateful that I have a “Black job” that allows me to do so.
Now is the time to support all of the member publications of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the trade organization of the Black Press. Of course, my home team is the AFRO, which has been in print for 133 years. We, like all Black publications, value every subscription, like, comment and share.
To all the journalists and teachers who have been fired, I say find the nearest Black publication and join the ranks of the Black Press. In this political climate, we certainly need all the soldiers we can get.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article said that Karen Attiah was fired for quoting the words of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. This article has been updated to reflect language from the termination letter sent to Ms. Karen Attiah from the Washington Post.
