Cornell West versus Chris Brown

(Excerpts from a worse discussion. Names redacted. Facts retracted.)

Strawman Wow. There are multiple servers that are solely devoted to Chris Brown on twitter right now. Millions of people talking about how they support him. They have to pledge support because he beat up his girlfriend Rihanna. Why does he deserve support? Because he is attractive, he can dance and sing. He has 4 million followers. Meanwhile, Cornell West has a couple thousand followers. Lawman Who cares about either or Chris Brown or Cornell West? This isn’t a rhetorical question, who cares about them? The people tweeting are the anonymous passive fans of easily consumable entertainment. Brown makes a mass appeal music or music with mass appeal, while West is a social critic. West is an author, a Professor, and a self proclaimed witness of love and justice. West gets plenty of equivalent love in the form book reviews, teaching positions, and he also has spoken word albums with musical luminaries such as Andre 3000 and KRS One. Raw Man I don’t know how to measure anything in a way that will hold up. I am can guess which way things will likely roll. I guess that in a hundred years, the twitter cloud of awareness will not be as accessible as West’s writing. I also presume we will still be able to enjoy watching Chris Brown jump over cars in the movie TAKERS and still dance to TRANSFORM YA. Is Chris Brown like Edgar Allen Poe? Is he just another all too human artist, who had personal failings but still created stuff that people like? No, he’s not Edgar Allen Poe.