BONUS ESSAY: Should I React to Charlie Kirk’s Death as a Muslim Mother and Journalist?

The America I sensed as a child, quietly simmering beneath the surface, has become frighteningly tangible for my kids today. Do parents like me keep our heads down as our parents once did?

After Charlie Kirk was killed, videos began popping up on social media of black and brown folks making skits of themselves staring at their computers, sighing with relief when the news confirmed the shooter wasn’t one of them. The punchline was always the same—thank God it was a white guy.

For Muslims, that relief doubled. Relief that the murderer wasn’t Muslim. Relief that, for once, an act of violence wouldn’t immediately trigger collective blame. But the feeling was fleeting. Because if there’s one thing Muslims in America have learned since 9/11, it’s that relief never lasts. The narrative always shifts, and it rarely shifts in our favor.

Kirk was openly Islamophobic, openly making comments such as “Islam is a means to the end of destruction in the West.” He built a platform on hate speech, turning Muslims into props for his political theater. And now he was dead—allegedly shot by a 22-year-old white man whose violence is already being softened in headlines. I didn’t feel sorrow for…