[*Note: I’ve purposely omitted the name of the primary subject of this post; however it shouldn’t take long to figure out who it is that I’m talking about.]

---

Somebody died the other day.

He was a popular rapper, from Florida.

His death has been a heavily discussed subject on social media over the course of the past week.

Initially after hearing the news of his death, I was flooded with a bunch of different emotions.

On one hand, I couldn’t help but feel sorrow.

The man was robbed and shot. When they found him, he had no pulse.

He was young, only 20 years old. Entirely too young of an age to have one’s life stripped away like that. I’m a person that loves and cherishes the life he’s been given, and I generally find no pleasure in anyone’s demise, so his death inevitably caused some level of sadness for me.

He also made music that apparently a lot of people cherished. I’m not one of them; in fact I didn’t like his musical artistry at all. But I’m well aware of music’s transcendent powers, and would never diminish the impact that different music has for different people, regardless of whether or not I care for it. After scanning my Twitter timeline, it seemed clear that his music genuinely resonated with a lot of people. I can understand why this is tragic news for so many fans.

But on the other hand, I felt empathy, and understanding.

Empathy for the people who were apathetic, or relieved, or even elated at the news of his passing.

The rapper was no stranger to controversy, and made headlines all the way up until his death for his violence against black women (aggravated battery of his pregnant girlfriend, assault of another woman, etc.) and his homophobic violence (nearly beating a gay cellmate to death), among other things. The victim involved in the aggravated battery case gave a haunting testimony back in December, and testified to being “head-butted,” “punched,” “stomped on,” “strangled,” etc. while she was pregnant with the rapper’s child. Another woman, whom he hit back in 2013, claimed she didn’t come forward earlier with the claims because she was “terrified for her life.”

Part of this rapper’s rise to fame was made possible by an industry and a musical audience that ignored these abuses, of black women and of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as overemphasized his musical talent, his potential for change, and society’s need to be forgiving. The problems with these responses are that 1.) they are the epitome of revisionist history, absolving him of all accountability for his life’s wrongdoing, 2.) they ignore the very real misery and trauma that his life had already caused for so many people, who are also deserving of our sympathy and empathy, 3.) they further demonstrate how little we as a society actually value the lives, feelings, and well-being of black women/LGBTQ+ people, and 4.) they request of the abused something we generally wouldn’t/shouldn’t ever ask of them: that they forgive an abuser.

With all this in mind, it is very understandable why the media’s wave of sympathy, support, and deification was met with apathy, neglect, and demonization.

None of this is said to suggest that it is wrong for someone to feel sadness in the wake of a tragic death. But I think it’s important that we be honest about how we remember people. It’s disingenuous to simply focus on the “good” and ignore the “bad” when we retrospectively evaluate people’s lives, simply because they are celebrities or because they may make impactful music.

A friend of mine posted this on their Instagram story in the wake of the rapper’s death:

“I refuse to cape for a serial abuser. How can you praise such a man as if death absolves him of such evils? A man who bragged on radio about beating a gay man almost to death because he “stared” at him. I wonder: did you tweet this much about his victims? Did you tweet your disapproval of the abuse? Or were you idle then? You speak of his growth and redemption as if it’s a guarantee, as if he was going to spend his entire life prioritizing his POTENTIAL to change. I don’t think the kid deserved to die, but I also don’t think it’s fair to his victims to hail him and not hold him accountable for the life he lived.”

The reality is that, in spite of all the praise and “RIPs” that flooded social media, this is the sentiment of so many people. And I think the last sentence is where I find myself presently: sure, I believe in humanity, and in human beings’ propensity and potential to change, and perhaps that’s why I generally am displeased when I hear that anyone has perished, especially young Black people. But I can’t sit back and overemphasize this potential, at the expense of the people who suffered while he was alive.

And with all that said, I hope that when I depart from this world, my family and friends will be honest about the legacy I leave behind, and will not elevate me to anything more than what I actually was.

Featured image from Abstract Pieces