I've waited awhile to say my piece on the departed so here goes

[Aviation Pro]

Back in 2024, Kirk said the following about black airline pilots, "If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified'." Now, I'm in the aviation training business, I've literally trained thousands of pilots in my quarter century in this profession. I've trained black pilots and each one of them, with few exceptions (like white pilots), have passed through the required levels of competency and certification through the work they put into their programs and gone on to stellar careers with the airlines.

So, you know what gnaws at me from that verifiable quote? The fact that the aviation accident that basically changed how pilots reach the right seat in the U.S., Colgan 3407, was commanded by a white-white-white, male pilot, who had to retest on every checkride he ever took and made the student pilot error of pulling back on the yoke in a stall. So, Kirk's statement shows that he had absolutely zero clue what he was talking about.

So, Rest in Peace, Charlie, but your legacy is the words you chose to use.

[Heidi]

1. His legacy is white-nationalist hate. His child will be embarrassed by Dad's legacy

and likely need lots of science-based support.

[KentuckyWoman]

6. Don't count on his children being better.

We hope. We try. We have worked toward ridding our society of this all my life and then some. Before MAGA I genuinely thought we'd made some headway. Not a lot, but some. Now here we are allowing the racist hate toddler tantrum over Obama to rip us apart.

You'd be stunned at how many people I thought were good Democrats who bought into the whole birther shit. They would vote for Hillary Clinton but "oh me oh my (hand wringing) we just can't have a muslin* terrorist loving (probably rapist) black man who isn't even really Amurikan judging by his weird name". It hurt to have to try to talk to people who stood with me up against racist all those years. It hurt to cut them loose. Some of them went and voted for Trump to keep the skeery brown people "where they belong".

Of course I knew racist was alive and well in America. Obviously the work goes on the cause endures as dear Ted Kennedy said. Perhaps I just wanted to believe we were making some progress and we never were. I leave it to those on the receiving end to judge whether or not even one iota of progress has been made. For me, I am nearer the end of life and mightily heartbroken to see all of this. The children may be worse than the parents... only time will tell.

[erronis]

2. Pull back on the yoke. Basically 'choke'.

White fear. Losing rational thought. Flying by the gut.

Hate to be any situation whatsoever with a person such as that.

And yet, hear we are. White-knuckled knuckle-heads in charge of this huge ship.

[eShirl]

3. A kinder, gentler white supremacist.

Such a nice boy.

[IbogaProject]

4. Kirk was a smooth talking conartist

He was a community college dropout who peddled hate and helped other unereducated fools better argue for ignorance.

[surfered]

5. Thanks for that. My Army experience taught me that we are stronger when we are United.