Two Birthdays. Two Murders. One Medal.
Trump’s latest act of commemoration reveals not just who America remembers, but who it chooses to erase.
Today, President Trump is awarding Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday, marking the highest honor the White House can confer on a civilian. The choice is deeply jarring because Kirk’s legacy is steeped in divisiveness—he was known for mocking George Floyd’s death and referring to Floyd as a “scumbag,” amplifying racial tension while ridiculing calls for justice. Trump’s solemn praise, framing Kirk as an American patriot and “martyr for liberty,” underscores not just political favoritism but a deliberate erasure of Floyd’s legacy, which remains tied to urgent conversations about racial injustice and the value of Black lives in America.
On this date, which both Kirk and Floyd share as their birthday, the act of public commemoration for Kirk feels hauntingly deliberate—a gesture that honors a man who belittled Floyd even as Floyd’s own birthday passes with little official recognition. There is no presidential moment of silence, no federal day of mourning for Floyd; instead, the White House is filled with tributes to a figure whose words and actions have contributed to the very atmosphere of contempt that led to Floyd’s death being mocked in the first place. Kirk’s defenders wear red today, mobilizing a media spectacle, while Floyd’s life is rendered invisible—his value as a person suffocated beneath layers of selective memory and political theater.
This juxtaposition, of honoring Kirk in grandeur as Floyd’s memory is sidelined, is not just personally repulsive—it is a national tragedy, exposing the moral vacuum at the heart of current leadership and reminding the country who is granted dignity, and who is dismissed. The power of deliberate remembrance, wielded by the President, has become a weapon of erasure for those whose lives aren’t deemed worthy of celebration by those who hold the stage.
Let me be clear that I do not celebrate Kirk’s tragic murder, but neither do I celebrate this deliberate attempt to gaslight cultural memory.