The important thing about these statements is not that one time he said something that people can cling to. It's that these statements are the essence of what the man was all about. He built his career, and a literal empire around this attitude, and ideology.
The man was intelligent and very well spoken. I'm sure he made a lot of effort to not say the quiet parts out loud. But if you look at the entirety, the picture is clear. And these snippets of statements that are floating around represent his position correctly. Like this one too for example:
“I’m sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,’”
But as we later learn, this was of course just a logical statement. Not at all in like of the ever-existing racism in the US.
“Of course there are qualified black and female pilots,” he later added. “But when you socially engineer racial quotas that far outstrip current demographics in a given field—especially one where the lives of passengers are on the line—it is fair to question whether someone receives the job because they’re the best or because they’re politically expedient. Screaming racism doesn’t make the plane land safely.”
You posted Charlie Kirk’s thoughts on DEI at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45220307, which were opposing racism, and you were against his position. There is certainly a racist piece of shit in this conversation but you may wish to look closer to home.
Yes, I posted that quote, as an example of what kind of statements he was making. And again, I'm not against his positions per se - I'm highlighting that with Charlie, there is a lot more going on under the surface, than over the surface. On the surface, he says things that are at least somewhat defensible. But the way of phrasing, the overall direction of where his things are going are different than what he is formulating.
He also said “I prefer sympathy”, but you omitted that.