Students for Trump Rally in Grand Rapids, will feature Charlie Kirk, known racist and founder of Turning Point USA

On Saturday, there will be a Students for Trump rally at Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids. Let that sink in for a moment…..a pro-Trump rally at Rosa Parks Circle.

The event is being hosted by the group Students for Trump, which is part of the the organization known as Turning Point USA. 

Turning Point USA was founded by Charlie Kirk, and according to their own website:

Since its founding, Turning Point USA has embarked on a mission to build the most organized, active, and powerful conservative grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses across the country. With a presence on over 2,000 campuses, Turning Point USA is the largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America.

According to SourceWatch.org, Turning Point USA has ties to the Koch Brothers, the fossil fuel industry and the Trump family. 

However, the most over aspect of Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk, is there use of racist propaganda and its relationship to White Supremacists groups across the country.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, in one article, documents several examples of Turning Point USA leaders making racist comments: 

TPUSA’s flirtation with racists and racism is well documented. In a December 2017 expose in The New Yorker, reporter Jane Mayer was provided screenshots of a text message from TPUSA’s (now former) national field director, Crystal Clanton, that read, “i hate black people. Like f— them all… I hate blacks. End of story.”

Kirk himself has been criticized for his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tweets, and he habitually tweets out racist dog-whistles with statements like, “It would take 40 years worth of blacks killed by cops to equal the number of black [sic] killed by other blacks in one year.”

In an article for Newsweek, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk rails against Black Lives Matter and their unfounded use of rioting in response to the police murder of George Floyd. 

In another public talk, Kirk said that there is no such thing as systemic racism in police departments. In fact, Kirk says, “cops are more likely to be shot by Black people,” as stated in this video. 

In this brief exchange, Kirk talks about why he likes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and in yet another video Kirk defends building the Wall along the the US/Mexican border. In both instances Kirk uses false information.

These are the kind of comments one can expect to hear from Kirk, when he addresses people at the Students for Trump Rally in Grand Rapids on Sunday.

Lastly, it is worth noting, that according to the Turning Point USA Chapter Map, there are TPUSA chapters at Forest Hills Eastern High School, Forest Hills Northern High School, GVSU, Hope College and West Ottawa High School.