I haven’t written anything about the Kanye West/Jimmy Kimmel feud because, frankly, it seemed silly to me, and though I’m as familiar with West’s work as any reasonably culturally-conscious person should be, hip hop is so not my beat.

But a few nights ago, West appeared on Kimmel’s show to put the feud to bed, and it’s now clear that this dustup is anything but silly.

A bit of background for the uninitiated. This all began when West gave an interview to BBC1′s Zane Low. It’s actually a very interesting interview on race, music, and fashion, among other topics—but in typical Kanye fashion, he peppered the interview with quotes that sounded extremely egotistical or extremely odd. Then the internet, as the internet is wont to do, cherry-picked the crazy stuff to spread far and wide.

Enter Jimmy Kimmel. On his late-night show, he ran a sketch in which some of the more humourous quotes from the interview were delivered by a child actor. West took to Twitter to express his displeasure in some all-caps tweets, and things escalated from there.

Why does any of this matter? Well, as soon as West went on Kimmel’s show and begun speaking, it was clear that he had been done a clear disservice by Kimmel’s sketch and by the public perception that had grown up around the feud. West is a well-spoken, intelligent person—yet the person portrayed by Kimmel’s sketch is a clownish man-child in the vein of 30 Rock‘s Tracy Jordan: rich, insane, egotistical, and stupid.

It’s worth asking ourselves why this kind of persona is still, in 2013, so appealing. The cultural desire to portray black men as ridiculous clowns needs to stop. Kimmel is guilty here, but 30 Rock, as much as I love it, doesn’t get off the hook either—and neither do any of us. Kanye West may be egotistical, he may occasionally say things that are ill-adviced (which he himself acknowledges in the interview with Kimmel), but he is a person deserving of as much respect as Jimmy Kimmel, and a massive cultural force to be reckoned with.

This is not to say that West doesn’t have issues of his own—in his lyrics, he’s quite often guilty of the misogyny and homophobia that characterizes much current-day rap and hip-hop. However, treating him as a clown is not a solution. He is a cultural figure with massive influence, for good or ill, and he should be treated with the seriousness that such a position deserves.

I can’t embed the West/Kimmel interview due to some strict usage requirements, but it’s available on YouTube, and worth a watch if you have the time. It may just change your opinion of Kanye West.

Also worth reading is Forrest Wickman’s explanation of why exactly Kanye is just as big of a deal as he says he is, Vulture’s curation of the best things Kanye said in his interview with Kimmel, and Flavorwire’s takedown of the media’s treatment of the whole debacle.