A man has died, must we turn grief into battle lines?

When news first broke that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated, a dull, sinking dread passed through me.

- Rebecca Jane

(Charlie Kirk. Gage Skidmore/Getty Images)

In these fractious days, death is never just death - it becomes symbolism, ammunition, a mirror held up to our darkest divisions. And in his killing, America, and the world has been forced to reckon with how fragile civility has become.

Regardless of where you stand on his politics, a man has lost his life, his family is grieving, and a nation is left picking at its wounds. Yet almost instantly, his passing became less about the human being and more about the battle lines it revealed.