The late Charlie Kirk was one of the most powerful conservatives in the right-wing media ecosystem. His ability to shift the Overton window to the right on countless issues, from trans rights to abortion access, resulted in thousands of new conservatives, especially young white men. I vehemently disagreed with Kirk’s views, but his influence on American politics remains undeniable.

The surreal circumstances surrounding Kirk’s murder—the Etsy witches, the engraved bullet carvings—immediately captured public attention. Elected officials and pundits across the political spectrum instantaneously moved to form a narrative that Kirk had been doing politics “the right way,” encouraging civil debate in an uncivil time. This was coupled with relentless pressure for the rest of us to perform public grief for a man who many believe would not care if we lived or died. Most of all, we were told that “political violence” was un-American and unacceptable.

For Palestinian Americans and the millions of people who stand with us, these newfound concerns about political violence have come as a surprise. After all, we’ve been watching genocide—perhaps the ultimate expression of political violence—unfolding in Gaza for two years, as Palestinian journalists like Hossam Shabatt are murdered for simply showing the truth. We’ve watched both Democratic and Republican administrations fund and arm this genocide while brutally repressing any and all public opposition to Israel’s crimes.

Many of the same church congregations that mourn Kirk’s death have said nothing as the homes of Palestinian Christians are stolen by Israeli settlers and as our churches are bombed by the Israeli military. Recently, Yemeni Americans witnessed the murder of 31 Yemeni journalists in a targeted strike by the Israeli military met with overwhelming silence from American elected officials.

If you truly support free speech, protecting the civil liberties of all Americans is paramount. But for all of the conservative outcry about cancel culture, the fastest way to get canceled or fired is to publicily oppose the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Charlie Kirk may have viewed himself as a free speech advocate, but he was a staunch supporter of these repressive measures.

Kirk was extremely open about his views toward American higher education, frequently blamed college campuses for the various societal ills that plague our nation, and operated a McCarthy-esque “Professor Watchlist” that targeted specific faculty members. He said that calling the horrors in Gaza a genocide was “repulsive,” and claimed that Palestine didn’t exist. He once joked, “I used to say that, hey, if you as a gay person would go to Gaza they’d throw you off tall buildings. Now they don’t have any tall buildings left… is that too soon? I’m sorry, maybe you shouldn’t kill Jews, stupid Muslims.” Kirk openly lobbied for the detention and deportation of my friend Mahmoud Khalil.

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Despite this, Kirk was afforded humanity by many of the very institutions he actively campaigned against. Columbia University, for instance, put its campus flags at half-staff after his death.

When I think about the public response to Kirk’s murder, I cannot help but wonder: Who is allowed the permission to mourn? Who is granted the ability to grieve? Whose death is seen as remarkable? Why is the life of Charlie Kirk more precious and valuable than the life of a child in Gaza? Or the life of Leqaa Korida, who has remained in ICE detention for months, despite losing over 200 family members in Gaza?

The reality is that political violence cannot be separated from our American present or our past. The United States was founded on the enslavement and subjugation of others. The very concept of manifest destiny, a 19th-century belief that settlers had the right to expand across North America, displacing Native Americans indigenous to the land, is a form of domination carried out through of violence. In the early days of this country, our elected officials would engage in duels over a perceived slight or disagreement as their preferred method of conflict resolution. This practice was technically illegal, but that did not deter dozens of senators, governors, and mayors from participating in duels, even if it meant the deaths of their colleagues.

The American commitment to political violence extends beyond governance to influence nations and regimes beyond geographical borders. During the rule of Nazi Germany, German elected officials sought inspiration from Jim Crow–era rules and policies as the basis for their laws targeting Jews, people with physical and mental disabilities, and other marginalized people, which then served as a foundation for their genocidal policies.

When authoritarian nations are in decline, violence and control become the modus operandi. Today, dehumanizing rhetoric that justifies violence is widespread. Recently, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade went on national television to justify the usage of lethal injections to “treat” individuals dealing with severe mental illness and homelessness, declaring, “Just kill ’em.” (He later apologized, but faced no further consequences.) Representative Randy Fine regularly promotes violence on social media by using hashtags such as “#StarveAway” and “#BombsAway” when speaking about Gaza.

To everyone horrified by the public reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death, I urge you to look at history. Right now, America is experiencing a phenomenon known as the “Imperial Boomerang”: a government that develops repressive measures as part of colonization eventually uses those same techniques on its citizens. When a government funds and justifies the genocide of an entire population, the ultimate crime against humanity, as normal and acceptable, you cannot be surprised when citizens of that nation become desensitized towards violence. The 1918 influenza pandemic, responsible for millions of deaths worldwide, was directly correlated with a rise in fascism and authoritarian regimes. In 2020, we witnessed the normalization of mass death as millions of Americans died from Covid-19. When mass death becomes normal, political violence is no longer an exception, but the new reality.