Grieving the loss of a loved one is one of the few experiences people across the world intimately understand. We don’t speak ill of the dead immediately after their passing because we wouldn’t want it done to someone we cared about.

It’s a sacred line of decorum you learned early in life not to cross. But amid a hyper-factional environment, some have begun smudging this line with their partisan palms, leaving their hands covered in immoral filth.

On Monday evening, the political world learned of the unexpected passing of Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway, best known as half of the conservative duo “Diamond and Silk,” at the age of 51.

Diamond and Silk, sisters and both former Democrats, rose to prominence after they switched parties and publicly supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 — and did so audaciously with their incredibly popular and humor-filled videos.

Trump, a great admirer of Diamond, wrote on Truth Social, “Really bad news for Republicans and frankly, all Americans. Our beautiful Diamond, of Diamond and Silk, has just passed away at her home in the State she loves so much, North Carolina.” He concluded, “Rest In Peace our Magnificent Diamond, you will be greatly missed.”

As heartfelt condolences from her peers and countless admirers appeared all over social media, many took this moment of mourning to brandish their dirty hands.

A cause of death hasn’t been released, but that didn’t stop people from making assumptions. “RIP Diamond. The newest member of the Herman Cain club,” @rickhavic said, referring to the GOP businessman and candidate. “I can’t imagine anyone who is actually surprised that Diamond died from COVID. The only thing that surprised me was that it took this long,” @jonathanjewel declared.

“Only time you’ll hear someone’s glad they lost a diamond,” one user said, while another wrote, “This is poetic irony, and she helped this sh*t get worse for a paycheck. F–k her.”

This behavior isn’t completely uncommon in recent years, as some on the left gloat immediately after a right-wing figure passes away. Liberals celebrated Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on Twitter; a blue-checkmark writer’s “Ding, dong, the witch is dead!” is one of the few I can print here. “Good Riddance” began trending on Twitter in response to radio host Rush Limbaugh’s passing.

When normal people hear of someone’s death, they at least enter a state of momentary sadness and empathize with his or her family and friends because we’ve all witnessed how brutally finite life is. Even people indifferent to the person who passed away abide by what our parents told us when we were children: If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

When I became aware of Diamond’s passing, I thought of her sister Silk and the rest of her family and the turmoil they must be going through. Situations like these have me wandering back to when I watched my great aunt, who was a grandmother figure for me, moan in pain-inducing agony hours before she passed away and how distraught I was for weeks afterward.

I couldn’t imagine at such a moment, when my heart was already broken, a mob of people armed with verbal daggers attempting to dismember it further instead of leaving it to heal.

It’s moments like this when all Americans, no matter their party affiliation, should assess the tactics of the political battlefield. We’ve become comfortably propagandized to accept that people are either with us or against us, and if someone isn’t standing shoulder to shoulder with us, they deserve dehumanization.

Every human atrocity involved dehumanization because you must disassociate yourself from being remotely similar to the people you’re about to massacre. Our political ecosystem uses similar tactics, presenting you with the poisonous dichotomy of being on the side of good or evil rather than concentrating on what we have in common for political understanding and eventual cohesion.

The reason part of the left can’t even pretend to mourn Diamond’s death is that it would acknowledge her humanity. They are too afraid to peer across the political front lines and see a sister, a daughter or a friend as then they might start to question their involvement in this political conflict.

I wasn’t a frequent viewer of Diamond’s content, and I’m sure she said things I don’t agree with. But she’s still a human being, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that no matter our politics or how war-ready we are. Even the military abides by Geneva Convention protocols to protect wounded people from having more pain inflicted upon them — and right now Diamond’s family is hurting.

When you go to enough funerals, you understand how precious life is and how meaningful a single person can be. Our palms may be covered in partisan soot, but we can clean them together. Rest in peace, Diamond.

Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on Substack: adambcoleman.substack.com.