The Pulpit of Hate: When Words Become Bombs

Words as Bombs

Introduction

Words matter. More than that, words wound. When spoken from a pulpit, they can heal a divided community, inspire reconciliation, or call a people to rise above anger. But they can also cut, divide, and ignite. When leaders treat words like weapons, they become bombs, detonating in the middle of our civic life.

Few people illustrate this more starkly than Bishop Talbert W. Swan II, longtime NAACP leader in Springfield, Massachusetts, pastor of a Pentecostal congregation, and outspoken social commentator. Swan has built a reputation on what he calls “social justice ministry.” He casts himself as a defender of the marginalized, a prophetic voice against oppression, and a champion for equity. On paper, that sounds noble. In practice, his rhetoric has often crossed the line from advocacy into outright hate.

In the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Swan didn’t use his position to decry violence or remind his flock that vengeance only deepens wounds. Instead, he declared that the killing was “chickens coming home to roost.” He went further, using a racial slur to describe Black Americans who mourned Kirk’s death. For a man who sits on a state hate-crimes task force, this was a stunning display of hypocrisy. When a leader tasked with opposing hate excuses political murder and hurls epithets at his own community, the mask slips.

And this is not a one-off slip of the tongue. Swan’s public record shows a consistent pattern of race-baiting, anti-white invective, antisemitic tropes, and demonization of law enforcement. He has called “whiteness” a “demonic force of evil.” He has smeared Jewish Americans as controlling sports and media. He has labeled white basketball fans “the Ku Klux Kaitlyn” and “the Mayo Posse.” These are not prophetic words of justice; they are bombs, designed to shock and divide.

The danger is not only what Swan says, but what his words do. They normalize hate when it comes from the “right” side of the ideological spectrum. They condition followers to excuse violence if it lands on their political enemies. They corrode the very institutions — church, community, civil society — that should be restraining us from the brink.

The Charlie Kirk Assassination Remarks

The assassination of Charlie Kirk should have been one of those moments where leaders of all stripes — especially clergy — stood up and said plainly: violence is wrong, murder is evil, and no cause justifies bloodshed. That is the minimum standard of moral leadership. Instead, Bishop Talbert Swan chose another path.

Within hours of the news breaking, Swan took to social media and declared Kirk’s killing “chickens coming home to roost.” The phrase is freighted with meaning. First made infamous by Malcolm X after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the phrase has historically been used to suggest that violence or tragedy is a form of cosmic karma, a deserved consequence for past sins. Applied here, Swan’s words implied that Kirk had earned his own execution, that the bullet which cut his life short was nothing more than justice returned.

For any public leader, such rhetoric would be irresponsible. For a pastor, it is unconscionable. The Christian pulpit is supposed to proclaim that vengeance belongs to God, that forgiveness is stronger than retribution. By suggesting that political assassination was “coming home to roost,” Swan abdicated that responsibility and sent a very different message: when someone you dislike is murdered, it may not be tragic at all — it may even be fitting.

The ugliness did not end there. When some Black Americans expressed sorrow at Kirk’s death, Swan lashed out at them with one of the most degrading slurs in Black vernacular, calling them “coons.” For this, he was even suspended from Twitter in the past, but that did not stop him from repeating the insult in this context. The contradiction is glaring: a man who presides over the Springfield NAACP and sits on a state hate-crimes task force resorting to racial epithets against his own community. This was not just poor judgment; it was hate speech.

The problem is not only what Swan said, but the permission structure such statements create. When a prominent minister excuses violence against a conservative activist, it encourages others to view murder not as a moral outrage but as a political weapon. It tells congregants, followers, and the public that violence can be contextualized, even legitimized, if the victim is on the wrong side of the ideological line. In a nation already fractured by polarization, that is gasoline poured on dry brush.

The media response highlighted another dimension of the problem: the double standard. When right-wing voices make inflammatory or violent remarks, they are swiftly condemned, investigated, and often forced to step down from leadership. When Swan excused Kirk’s killing, however, the coverage was muted. Outlets described his words as “controversial” or “provocative,” not hateful. Imagine the reverse: if a white evangelical pastor had said the assassination of a Black activist was “chickens coming home to roost,” the outrage would be immediate and unforgiving. That pastor would be removed from every board, denounced by every institution, and shunned from public life. Yet Swan remains in his pulpit and on his task force.

The truth is simple: words are bombs both ways. Just as white nationalist rhetoric has fueled violence in recent years, so too can the rhetoric of leaders like Swan legitimize violence when it aligns with their politics. When leaders excuse violence on their enemies, they plant the idea in the minds of their followers that such violence is not only acceptable but just. From pulpits to podiums, such rhetoric erodes the common ground on which civic peace depends.

A Pattern of Race-Baiting and Anti-White Rhetoric

Swan’s comments on Kirk were not an aberration. They fit a larger pattern of racially charged rhetoric that treats “whiteness” not as a cultural construct but as a kind of demonic essence.

In one notorious tweet, Swan declared: “Whiteness is an unrelenting, demonic force of evil.” That statement does not critique a system or an institution; it demonizes an entire race of people. It takes the complex realities of history and flattens them into a racialized curse. Coming from a man who holds positions of civic responsibility, it is an act of verbal arson.

His public commentary has also extended to mocking white sports fans. During the meteoric rise of women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark, Swan referred to her white supporters as “the Ku Klux Kaitlyn,” “the Mayo Posse,” and “non-melanated bigots.” These are not clever barbs. They are racialized insults aimed broadly at white people. Again, imagine the reverse: a white pastor mocking Black athletes’ fans with similar language. Such a person would be instantly discredited.

This language does not just sting; it divides. By framing all social problems through the lens of “whiteness” and dismissing white Americans in sweeping terms, Swan collapses the distinction between systems of power and individual people. He leaves no space for complexity, dialogue, or shared responsibility. Instead, he pushes a worldview in which white people are cast as perpetual villains, incapable of redemption.

The irony is that such rhetoric weakens the very causes Swan claims to champion. If the goal is genuine racial reconciliation, public trust in institutions, or progress toward equity, then hurling demeaning racial slurs sets those goals back. It does not persuade; it polarizes. It does not heal; it hardens.

Antisemitic Rhetoric and Defenses

Swan’s record is not limited to anti-white rhetoric. His commentary on Jewish Americans and Israel has drawn widespread criticism as well.

He has asserted that Jews exercise “an inordinate level of influence in American sports and entertainment.” This is a textbook antisemitic trope: the idea that Jews secretly control industries or exert disproportionate power. It is the same conspiracy thinking that has fueled centuries of hostility, from pogroms to the Holocaust. For a hate-crimes task force member to repeat such rhetoric is staggering.

On Israel, Swan has crossed another line. He has referred to Israeli soldiers as “Nazis” and described their actions as “ethnic cleansing.” He has written, “This isn’t a war, it’s a Holocaust.” Holocaust inversion — accusing Jews of committing the very crimes they suffered — is widely recognized as a form of antisemitism.

Swan has also defended celebrities like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving after they made antisemitic remarks, arguing that backlash was due to Jewish “influence” rather than the content of their words. Once again, this shifts responsibility away from those who trafficked in hate and onto Jews themselves.

The problem here is not legitimate criticism of Israeli policy — which is fair game in a democracy. The problem is rhetorical excess that recycles antisemitic myths and weaponizes Holocaust imagery. Words like these do not simply critique; they inflame, they delegitimize, and they provide cover for hostility.

Attacks on Police and Blaming Society

Another consistent theme in Swan’s rhetoric is hostility toward law enforcement. To be clear: criticism of police misconduct and calls for reform are necessary parts of civic discourse. But Swan often goes further, painting police not as a flawed institution in need of accountability but as a systemic evil.

He has accused entire departments of being irredeemably corrupt, framed every act of enforcement through the lens of white supremacy, and dismissed concerns about crime by shifting blame onto “society.” His rhetoric minimizes the reality of violence in communities, where victims are disproportionately people of color who depend on effective policing.

By externalizing all responsibility — making crime always a function of oppressive systems and never of individual choice — Swan avoids the hard conversations about accountability within communities themselves. This rhetoric is seductive because it absolves, but it also disempowers. Communities cannot solve problems if every ill is blamed on forces outside their control.

Why This Matters

Ministers wield moral authority. When they use that authority to excuse violence, spread racial or antisemitic hate, or demonize entire groups, they do more than shock sensibilities — they erode the very foundations of trust that make civic life possible.

The double standard in Swan’s case is glaring. If a white pastor had said that a Black activist’s assassination was “chickens coming home to roost,” his career would be over. If a white pastor had called “blackness” a “demonic force of evil” or mocked Black athletes’ fans with racialized nicknames, he would be ruined. If a white pastor had accused Jews of controlling sports or used Holocaust inversion against Israel, the condemnation would be total.

But because Swan’s rhetoric comes from the left, wrapped in the language of social justice, institutions look the other way. That selective outrage sends a dangerous signal: hate is tolerable if it comes from the right source.

Words are bombs both ways. White nationalists know it when they speak of “replacement.” Radical activists know it when they excuse political violence. And Swan knows it when he calls an assassination karma, when he mocks white Americans, when he flirts with antisemitic tropes. These words do not vanish into the ether; they land, they detonate, and they shape public attitudes.

Conclusion – Accountability and the Pulpit

Hate is hate, no matter who preaches it. Whether it comes from a white nationalist or a Black minister, whether it dresses itself in patriotism or in social justice, the substance is the same: it divides, it wounds, and it excuses harm.

Bishop Talbert Swan has every right to speak his mind. But the public has every right to hold him accountable. He should not serve on a hate-crimes task force while spewing hate himself. He should not be treated as a moral authority while excusing violence and demonizing entire groups of people. His pulpit should not be a launching pad for verbal bombs.

True leadership requires courage — not just the courage to confront injustice, but the courage to restrain oneself from fueling hatred. America needs clergy who cool tempers, not stoke them. It needs prophets who speak truth without demonizing whole races or faiths. It needs men and women of the cloth who heal wounds instead of cutting them deeper.



Until Swan learns that lesson, his words will remain bombs, and his ministry will remain part of the problem rather than the solution.

References

• Free Beacon. (2023). Massachusetts hate-crimes task force member accuses Israel of genocide, says Jews control the media. Retrieved from https://freebeacon.com
• Free Beacon. (2023). Charlie Kirk assassination is ‘chickens coming home to roost,’ NAACP leader says. Retrieved from https://freebeacon.com
• OutKick. (2024). Bishop who attacked Caitlin Clark fans with racial names. Retrieved from https://outkick.com
• Urban Faith. (2019). Black bishop says Twitter suspended him for hateful conduct. Retrieved from https://urbanfaith.com
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025). Talbert W. Swan II. In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talbert_W._Swan_II
• Daily Beast. (2022). The dangerous mainstreaming of Kanye West and Kyrie Irving’s brand of antisemitism. Retrieved from https://thedailybeast.com

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this post are opinions of the author for educational and commentary purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual or organization, and should not be construed as legal, medical, or financial advice. References to public figures and institutions are based on publicly available sources cited in the article. Any resemblance beyond these references is coincidental.