Pitchfork’s release of hidden audio detailing XXXTENTACION admitting to the abuse of his pregnant girlfriend, among a laundry list of other crimes on Oct. 23 has reignited a long standing argument in the music community: Is it immoral to listen to music made by immoral people? Is a Spotify stream or a concert ticket a tacit endorsement of abusive behavior?

In the specific case of XXXTENTACION, if the accusations are true, and he certainly seems to be admitting to them on the audio, he was a violent, abusive person who put his girlfriend through torture. It would be understandable if someone wanted all of his music, and him, scrubbed off the face of pop culture.

The problem, though, is that the music is already here. There was a vulnerability in his work that spoke to people and may have helped them through hardships and struggle. Those emotions are real, and should not be invalidated or shamed because the person who made them possible was a bad person.

Attacking fans of problematic artists also leads to those fans rallying around the artists and erasing the artist’s history to ease their own conscious. XXXTENTACION in particular has always had a small but vocal cult-like following that never believed any of the accusations against him and blamed everything on the victim of his violence, his ex-girlfriend. This group went as far as to bully his ex into renouncing all of her statements against him in order to extract their kind of perverse vindication. While some of these fans likely just hate women, many of them saw themselves being attacked and chose to rally around X to defend themselves.

Even if none of those arguments hold water, to be ideologically consistent, many more artists would have to be shunned from the industry. Dr. Dre committed a horrific assault on music journalist Dee Barnes, punching her, and kicking her and throwing her down a flight of stairs. Chuck Berry used to hide cameras in the bathrooms of his home and record women using the toilet without their consent. John Lennon admitted to, on multiple occasions, beating his first wife. If X has to go, so do they.

There is a systemic problem with violence against women in American pop music. The solution to that problem is certainly not to shame people who listen to a specific abusive artist on Twitter and act like listening to an abusive artist is the same as endorsing that abuse. Life is hard, and people have no control over the things that make life easier for them. The way to go forward is not with scorn and distaste, but empathy and understanding for those around us. If you can’t separate the art from the artist, that’s fine. Neither can I. Some people can, though, and that doesn’t make them bad people.