@pixel-dsp ah! That's exactly what I meant in my previous comment and why I don't feel qualify to comment further. But let me give some clarification :
We are prisonners of our biases and cultural references. For me, as an European, I only read a dispute between two artists. Maybe this is because of my education and culture, maybe it is because of the white priviledge, a concept that I wasn't familiar with until recently, as it got popularised through US social medias (and which is an interesting concept to reflect on, don't get me wrong on that!)
If you bring a social and cultural frame into the picture, the story can be read differently :
-the black artist vs. the white artist;
-the perhaps poor artist who still struggles with a day job and self-publishes his books vs. the presumably rich professionnal artist who is supported by a publishing company;
-the less known artist vs. the famous artist;
Etc.
(Edit : these are exemples of interpretation, I don't know anything about Alphonso's or Jake's private and business situations).
All is cumulative and does not exclude one another. This add layers and layers of complexicity. In the context of Black Lives Matter, this is all the most sensitive.
If I were you, I would ask your student to think in terms of his own bias and context, and how much does it weight on his reasonning. Assuming Jake pladgiarised Alphonso's book (for which there is no expert view yet, nor opinion from a neutral party mandated by the artists), isn't he giving some intention to Jake that Jake didn't have? Beside is there some interest from some activists on the Internet to politicise the dispute?
I assume the artists are American and most of their followers are as well. As a non US person, my impression is that the reaction of the people is exacerbated by the current context. Also as a non-US person, I am probably not the best person to analyse the situation and don't want to cause contreversy on the forum. My place is more of an observant. So, if you came this far to read this, please consider it for what it is : a mere thought as I am trying to understand the situation, and not an invitation to debate politics on the forum, which is - to me - not the best place to do so.
