2,422 videos 1,389,747,653 views US Joined Aug 30, 2018
Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk Challenges Student on Fatherlessness, Role Models, and the Crisis in Black America
Charlie Kirk engages in a powerful exchange with a college student who grew up without a father, defending the importance of the nuclear family and masculine figures in a child's development. The conversation shifts from personal experience to cultural analysis, examining the breakdown of the Black family, the influence of rap culture on youth values, and the role of government subsidies in perpetuating single motherhood. Kirk contrasts the student's choice of Kendrick Lamar as a role model over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, highlighting fundamental differences in worldview between conservative and progressive perspectives on family, culture, and success.
A female college student approached Charlie Kirk with a deeply personal challenge: she grew up without a father and considers herself successful, so why does society place so much emphasis on having a father in the home? Kirk acknowledged her vulnerability in sharing her story and began by asking if there was ever a time when a masculine figure would have been helpful in her life.
When she struggled to identify such moments, Kirk offered an example: "When a boyfriend might have broke up with you and you didn't want to talk to your mom because she just didn't get it, and you wanted a strong stable man to say 'You're Beautiful.'" The student responded that she didn't see a difference between her mother or father offering such reassurance, a perspective Kirk found revealing of fundamentally different worldviews.
The Father-Daughter Bond
Kirk explained that being a father to a daughter creates a unique bond that differs from the mother-daughter relationship. He described it as a form of Greek love called "storge," a father-daughter affection where "you fall in love again but not romantic love." According to Kirk, a father's task is "to shepherd that vulnerable innocent girl through life all the way up until the marriage aisle" where he hands off that protective role to another man through marriage.
The student pushed back, asking if there always has to be a man in a woman's life. Kirk clarified that while there are exceptions, "it is a beautiful ideal" that should be pursued. When that ideal falls apart, he argued, there are measurable consequences.
The Statistical Reality of Fatherlessness
Kirk shifted from the philosophical to the empirical, pointing to the Black community as evidence of the consequences when fathers are absent. "In the Black community when fathers are no longer around, crime goes up, poverty goes up," he stated. He explained the practical need for a masculine authority figure in the home: "The dad should come in and discipline the 14-year-old for acting like a brat. The dad comes in and he says stop doing this. You need to be able to outrank the 14-year-old brat with another masculine figure."
Kirk argued that "the biggest problem in Black America is not racism, it's the lack of dads." He cited former President Barack Obama as someone who once agreed with this assessment, noting that Obama made rebuilding the Black family a central piece of his 2012 campaign when he drew a 100,000-person crowd and "talked about how we need to rebuild the Black family and put dads back."
Kirk then posed a question to the audience: "Why doesn't the Democrat Party talk about that anymore?" The student responded that there are bigger issues, which Kirk firmly rejected. As a conservative, Kirk said his focus is on family breakdown rather than abstract concerns like climate change or systemic racism. "If you have family breakdown, don't worry about climate change, don't worry about systemic racism," he said, arguing that these are "crazy abstractions" compared to the concrete problem of family structure.
Cultural Expectations and Child Abandonment
The student questioned how fathers are being "taken away" from families, suggesting they are choosing to leave. Kirk acknowledged this point and argued that there is a "cultural expectation that is different in Black America than in White America, which is it's okay to impregnate a woman and abandon her in Black America."
When the student challenged the basis of this claim, Kirk cited the work of Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele, who have "done amazing analysis on this." He contrasted this with upper middle-class white culture in affluent Chicago suburbs like Winnetka, Libertyville, Hinsdale, and Naperville, where "if you impregnate a girl, a woman, and you just abandon her, that's frowned upon. That is a social stigma in upper middle-class white culture."
Kirk went further, arguing that in Black culture, abandonment is "not" stigmatized and is "in fact glorified by the rap culture." The student disagreed, suggesting that rap culture is "showing what happened" rather than glorifying it.
The Influence of Rap Culture
This led to an extended discussion about whether popular rap music uplifts or diminishes its audience. Kirk asked whether the most popular figures in Black music—naming Nicki Minaj and Cardi B—are "empowering people to be great." The student defended them as empowering, then pivoted to artists like Kendrick Lamar who "talk about their life experiences" and allow people to relate because "that's also what happened to them."
Kirk pressed the question: does rap music lift up the audience to become better? The student argued that it does by creating shared understanding and community around common experiences. Kirk clarified he wasn't making a moral judgment but noting that "the essence, the core of the ethos, is not exactly about quitting drinking, quitting drugs, and getting married and having children."
He then asked a direct question: "In Black rap culture, is it glorified to go sleep with a lot of women?" After some back and forth, the student acknowledged this is "one aspect" of the culture. Kirk argued that "ideally your culture should try to elevate and try to challenge the individual to virtue and goodness, not try to bring them down to the lowest parts."
The student maintained that rappers are "sharing their experiences, they're not saying this is the best thing in the entire world." She explained that topics like gang violence appear in rap because "that's what's happening in their neighborhoods, that's the only option they feel like" when living in environments without visible economic opportunities or positive family examples.
Systemic Racism Versus Family Structure
Kirk acknowledged the student's point about systemic racism being a driver of Black America's struggles but introduced another factor: government subsidies for single motherhood. "We subsidize single motherhood in this country," he explained. "If you stay single as a single mother, you get money from the federal government." He asked if the student could at least agree that a stronger nuclear family in Black America would be beneficial.
The student agreed with significant caveats, saying "in a lot of cases" it would be good "if they're both healthy parents and they are both ready to have a child." She emphasized she wouldn't want an abusive father present. When Kirk asked what percentage of fathers she thought were abusive, she admitted she had no idea and hadn't researched it. Kirk suggested it was "probably small," and the student conceded that "generally it's good when Mom and Dad stays around" if they are healthy and ready parents.
The Role Model Question
Kirk concluded this portion of the discussion with a hypothetical: would the student prefer a Black child have Kendrick Lamar or Clarence Thomas as a role model? Without hesitation, the student chose Kendrick Lamar over the Black Supreme Court Justice.
Kirk expressed surprise: "Not the Black American on the United States Supreme Court?" The student explained her choice by claiming that Clarence Thomas is "trying to ban interracial marriage" and other rights. Kirk pointed out the irony: "He's in an interracial marriage. He literally is married to a white woman." The student persisted, referencing the Roe v. Wade decision and claiming Thomas is "trying to ban his own marriage."
Kirk summarized the fundamental divide: "That's the difference in worldview. We have clarity but not agreement. You'd rather have Kendrick Lamar, who sleeps around with everything that moves, who's a poet, who won a Pulitzer Prize, versus Clarence Thomas, who grew up in the antebellum South, who's a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, one of the smartest people ever to serve on the Supreme Court as a Black American."
The student objected to Kirk calling Kendrick "some rapper," saying it was "very dismissive" of his work with the Black community. Kirk acknowledged her opinion, noting they could agree on the need for better role models even if they disagreed on who those role models should be.
Kamala Harris's Greatest Accomplishment
In a final exchange, Kirk asked the student—whom he correctly assumed was voting for Kamala Harris—what she considered Harris's greatest accomplishment. The student cited "capping the insulin at $35." Kirk then asked if she was anti-big pharma, which she confirmed. He pointed out the contradiction: "That's why all the pharmaceutical companies are donating to her, that's right."
Kirk thanked the student for the conversation, ending with "Enjoy voting for Kamala."
