By Lilly Buist / Editor in chief and Lydia Styf / Staff writer
Social media ran rampant the day of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, causing tension between individuals across the country. NPHS students too felt the effects of anger, anxiety, and backlash resulting from this event and its aftermath.
Senior Jude Gibbs was one of several students who posted his opinion on social media.
“I just spoke out on it because someone getting shot for [using his] free speech shouldn’t make us scared to go back and hide,” Gibbs said. “The less we talk out and [use] free speech, the more that will turn into a country where everyone speaks the same, everyone talks the same, and there will be no differences.”
Gibbs posted an Instagram story about how violence “should never be the answer.”
“At this point I did see people celebrate it online, so I was just saying that the more we condemn free speech and the more that we limit free speech, and the more that we think political violence against free speech is okay, people will go after everyone that has a different political view,” Gibbs said.
“I was also posting about some aftermath that I saw at some universities when people were spray painting on walls to ‘kill all Charlie Kirks,’ and I was condemning that too,” Gibbs said. “So most of my posts have just been, ‘I don’t care what your political beliefs are, this should never be okay.’”
Gibbs and his family were “heartbroken” by the assassination.
“It never should have happened,” Gibbs said. “I don’t think anyone should condone gun violence, because personally, I believe the life of a human being is more important than what that person believes.”
Many people reached out to Gibbs in solidarity on the issue. Gibbs particularly noted a shared reaction to the unedited videos of Kirk’s assassination that circulated online.
“Most of them don’t even like the guy, but they still understood, if you saw that video, it was kind of traumatic. Most people understood why I was freaking out about this, because I just saw somebody get shot, and it wasn’t in a movie,” Gibbs said.
However, not everyone agreed with Gibbs, and they voiced their opinions to him.
“There’s a few people reaching out, telling me that I was a bigot or a Nazi, a neo-Nazi, all these things,” Gibbs said. “I don’t feel hatred to those people. I’ve been trying to be a better Christian recently. I’ve been trying to read the Bible more, I’ve been trying to pray more. I’ll be like, ‘hey, I will pray for you if you think that this is okay, and I hope you find better humanity someday.’”
An anonymous student made posts similar to those of Gibbs’.
“[Kirk] was a very respectable person who did a lot of great things, and that should be celebrated and respected, not mocked and disrespected, especially when he has a wife and children that will never see him again,” the anonymous student said.
The student received backlash for these posts from other students.
“No political disagreement justifies this kind of violence,” the student said. “People around me were making fun of it and mocking his death, making it seem like it was a good thing. They reacted very negatively to my opinion. They thought he was a horrible person who deserved it.”
Gibbs believes that people should be focused more on “humanity” than violent responses.
“There’s people on the right that call for civil unrest and a war on the left, from what I’ve heard from a few people, but I feel like that’s not the right response either, because [that’s] more violence,” Gibbs said.
“But there’s also a few people on the left I’ve seen that celebrate the death of somebody, and that breaks my heart because some people have put politics at such a forefront and such a life or death situation that we have lost humanity in people,” Gibbs said.
Despite the online backlash, Gibbs feels that this is a moment that his generation can truly shine in, rather than being afraid of it.
“I feel like us as a generation, since we’re all on social media, this could actually be an issue where we could speak out, come together and realize [that] even if someone speaks out against your political beliefs, no matter how, especially if it’s just someone talking, we could actually come together and [realize] we are more than just our political beliefs,” Gibbs said.
“We’re more about humanity. We’re all human. We’re all connected in that way. We all want what’s best for the country, we just have different ways of achieving that,” Gibbs said.
