Today, at age 75, Don Cornelius was found dead as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound authorities are calling a suicide. The tragic news jump-started Black History month. It was the end of the warm voice, the smooth cat-daddy composure, and the effortless swagger that was on full display for decades as the conductor of the Soul Train, the black community’s weekly TV party. For allowing us to ride on “the hippest trip in America,” Mr. Cornelius will always be remembered as the Afro-ed hero of a culture. Or will he?

Like every other Run-DMC-loving ’80s kid, I watched Mr. Cornelius introduce my favorite rappers— week after week after week—against his better wishes that rap just go away. (See De La Soul’s “Pass the Plugs”: “We didn’t do Soul Train/Don don’t like rap.”) And while I usually went on a silent jihad against any and all rap critics back then, I gave smooth Don a pass. Decades later, I found myself in the audience of the 2009 BET Awards. Michael Jackson had passed away days earlier and Chris Brown had been shut out of ceremony because of the very famous beating of his R&B-star girlfriend, Rihanna. With Michael Jackson tributes all about, Brown’s absence was an obvious omission. The negative space where Brown should have been was loud static.

Don Cornelius was there to introduce The OJays. But at 73, his words were not smooth silk, they did not ease on out of his mouth. They fell, jumped, and stumbled onto the mic. He was droning on and on and the audience grew uncomfortable, looking around for someone to play the role of the Sand Man and shuffle him off the stage. When no one came, the audience clapped, giving him a rousing round of applause, as to gently cue Mr. Cornelius to exit stage left. When the clapping stopped, Don continued on. He was sadly oblivious. It was like watching your favorite boxer in the ring well after his prime. Yet no one would dare speak ill of Don Cornelius, a legend who had hosted so many parties in our living rooms.

The moment was not lost on Chris Brown, who had been shut out of the entire event. To Brown, there was a greater question dancing around in the air. Why does Mr. Cornelius—who had current domestic abuse charges—get to ramble on at the event celebrating the life of Michael Jackson, a man who had very serious child molestation charges leveled against him? Meanwhile, Brown, the most obvious MJ heir apparent, was not allowed in the building. It was a valid question. When I talked to Chris about it several weeks later, for the Dec/Jan 2001 cover story in VIBE, he was still fuming.

“They had me in rehearsal for it,” he told me at his Virginia dance studio, “and [at the] last minute they said, ‘Well, we can’t do it because of sponsor reasons,’ or whatever the case. That’s wack. I look at it like you have somebody who has the same scenario as me but you honor him that night, Don Cornelius. He had [a similar] charge as me and he even got convicted of his charge and you honor him that night.”

He followed up his charges of hypocrisy with another good point:

“If they want to stand for something, stand for everything,” he said. “I know what I did was wrong, and I was making amends and working that out for me. I felt like BET should have been looking at the people who got drug charges, gun charges, weapons, other stuff. You can’t discriminate…Let’s make sure we show them that it’s wrong but we still support our people and get them to a higher place and let them learn from their mistakes.”

Chris Brown follows in the footsteps of great singers like R. Kelly, who also performs with the shadow of an asterisk hovering over his head. And while Brown says he’s working through it, the shadow may remain as long as he breathes.

But in death, can a talent like Brown have a fatal flaw that undoes all he has done in life? Or should one’s character defects die with him? Joe Paterno’s recent death offers some answers for what is to come for Brown and for Cornelius. While Paterno suffered a blow to his legacy for the passive role he played in the Penn State child abuse scandal, he received a hero’s send-off and a growing call for empathy.

In the black community, these issues are extra thorny. For good reason, Black people have long been protective of their heroes, diligently fighting against a white power structure dedicated to tearing them down. Don Corneluis was such a hero. He wasn’t an upstart like Brown, a rebelious hip-hop generation progeny. Cornelius had moved through decades of black history with elegance and purpose. His abuse case was published quietly, but surely it was just as raw to the victim as the Brown abuse was to Rihanna. And yet, there he was rambling on before a crowd of anxious BET Awards attendees who wished he would relinquish the spotlight for very different reasons than the silencing of Brown.

In light of Mr. Cornelius’ accomplishments and troubled personal life—which we’ll surely be hearing more about in the days-weeks to come—the value of the asterisks takes on new meanings. In death, the asterisk goes a long way to balance the extra, if underserved, virtues we bestow upon our heroes and sheroes in life. And if so, shouldn’t we highlight only the flaws that pertain to the reason the person is celebrated in the first place? The acts and thoughts that add perspective to the actual accomplishments, give complexity to the lives of these heroes, without clouding history with tangential flaws. We can debate whether Cornelius’ abuse of his estranged wife is an asterisk or simply a character flaw, as they are not always the same. But let’s not abuse the asterisk in an attempt to make short work of an otherwise complex existence.

After all, Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of human rights, held slaves; Tupac, the author of the uplifting “Brenda’s Got A Baby,” went to jail for rape; Barack Omaba, the first black president and student of Civil Rights, came out against gay marriage*. If such asterisks persist in people who have accomplished much in full view, what about the rest of us? When you die, what will the asterisk next to your name read?

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[*Obama's stance on Gay Marriage shows these signs of hope and change]