Kanye West performs during the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Aug. 28, 2016.

Theo Wargo/MTV/Getty Images for MTV

Last year we debuted the list of people to whom black America gave the collective side eye. As 2016 winds to a close, once again we document the people we’ve disinvited from the cookout.




Since the apostles got together to talk to Judas in December of the year 1, black people have used this month to undergo a collective purging. Although we stopped short of revoking their black cards (which requires a two-thirds vote from the Global Organization Dedicated to the Descendants of Africans, Moors and Negroes—GODDAMN), these people have worn out their welcome in black America. Here is the 2016 List of People We Don’t Mess With Anymore:



Cam Newton

Cam Newton

Twitter


This time last year, we were rallying around the Carolina Panthers quarterback as he wound down an NFL season during which he was named Most Valuable Player, dabbed in end zones and unapologetically announced that the world wasn’t used to seeing a black man with his talent and ability.

Despite his combination of movie-star good looks and charismatic personality, he gave white people the heebie-jeebies because he was unwilling to tone down his swag. His black brashness compelled conservative sports fans to call him “thuggish” and a suburban Tennessee mom to pen an open letter calling Cam a “spoiled brat” because of his chest thumps and thrusts. Last year, everyone called him “arrogant” and too loud—which, when translated into whitespeak, translates as “too black.”

What a difference a year makes. It is unclear what happened to Cam during the offseason, but when he returned to the spotlight, he had transformed from obstinate, unflinching icon into a mediocre signal caller in Technicolor hats from the Pharrell “All Lives Matter” collection, stiff-arming his blackness at every turn.

From his bizarre GQ article in which he sidestepped support for Black Lives Matter and Colin Kaepernick by pointing out that America was “beyond racism,” to his shuck-and-jive, equivocating, empty quotes about the Keith Lamont Scott protests in Charlotte, N.C., Newton cemented his position as the poster boy for “New Negroes.”


His postgame press conferences have become a stage for his Willy Wonka, Garanimal-flavored, shuck-and-jive fashion straight from the pages of Highlights magazine, and no one knows what happened. I believe it’s the repeated blows to the head.

It’s just a guess, because I don’t mess with him anymore.



Hoteps

Allen Payne in CB4

YouTube Screenshot


Have you ever been called a “bed wench”? Have you ever had to sit through a long explanation that weaved the Illuminati, the Federal Reserve and numerology into why African queens shouldn’t perm their hair, wear short skirts or talk back to men, when all you asked for were directions to Wal-Mart? Has anyone ever told you there were no gay people in ancient Kemet? Then you’ve been victimized by a Hotep.

One of the hallmarks of Hotepism is its antiquated misogyny and homophobia, which no one tolerated in 2016. Hoteps are like Trump voters—they want to make us “great again.” Like most factions that want to “go back” to a certain time, the specific date to which they desire to return is usually part of an era when men could tell women what to do with their bodies, minds and—most of all—vaginas. But this year was the year of being “woke,” and most people saw through the facile, paper-thin proclamations informed by YouTube videos and Instagram memes from the Hotep social media network. But Hoteps are allergic to verifiable information. And lotion.


Mostly, lotion.

That’s why we don’t mess with Hoteps anymore.

Ase, ashy.



Lil Wayne

Lil Wayne

Screenshot


The following is an excerpt from a recent meeting with Lil Wayne and representatives from the Executive Committee of Black People:

Committee Chair: Hi, Lil Wayne. Come in and have a seat.

Lil Wayne: What’s up, my n—gas? Why y’all look so sad? Is everything OK? Would you like a sip of this sizzurp? You wanna hit this blunt?


CC: No, thanks, Wayne. Can I call you “Lil”? OK, listen, Mr. Weezy, we have some bad news. We recently watched the Nightline interview where you belittled Black Lives Matter and said, as a young, rich black man, you knew America cared about you.

LW: What was wrong with that?

CC: Are you serious? Listen, I don’t know if it’s the Molly or the codeine talking, but referring to the Movement for Black Lives as “dumb [s—t]” didn’t sit well with us. And when you said the only thing you felt connected to was your gang flag, we decided to dismiss you from the team.


LW: Fa real? But I’m Weezy!

CC: We know. And we really liked your work. We will always remember that you rapped on one of the greatest songs in black history, “Back Dat Azz Up,” and Tha Carter 2 will always have a place in our hearts. However, this incident, combined with your past statements making fun of dark-skinned black women, left us no choice. Please clean out your locker and turn in your black card.


LW: So this how y’all gon’ do me? I’m a hot boy. A Cash Money millionaire!

CC: It is out of our hands. We even asked Birdman for a reference, but all he would say was—if you brought up his name—to make sure you put some “respeck” on it. I’m sorry, Mr. Tunechi, I wish there was something we could do, but we don’t mess with you anymore. Please send in Stacey Dash on your way out.




Charlamagne tha God

Tomi Lahren and Charlamagne tha God

Instagram


Dear Charlamagne:

We let you slide when you said, “White girls are popping right now,” a few years ago and went on to say that you like pure white women who smell like “heaven and lemon Pledge.” We were cool when you agreed with Raven-Symoné’s statement that she doesn’t want to be labeled “African American.” We weren’t even mad at you when you bought into the white hype subverting Black Lives Matter by bringing up black-on-black crime in this tweet:




But when you invited “alt-right” golden girl Tomi Lahren on your show, it was the second-to-last straw. And when you responded to the controversy by insinuating that black and Latina women weren’t trying to build positive, public media platforms like the flaxen-haired white supremacist darling you promoted, we were perplexed. As one of the few people in the world whose face is both dark-skinned and light-skinned, you should’ve known better.




Nate Parker

Nate Parker

Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage


Depending on which side you stand, Nate Parker is either the visionary actor-turned-filmmaker who financed, wrote, directed and starred in the groundbreaking The Birth of a Nation, or …

… an unrepentant misogynist who weaseled out of a sexual assault, refuses to show remorse for his actions and managed to shoehorn two fabricated rape stories into the life of Nat Turner while waiting for black women to embrace him for it.


Or both.

Or neither.

Maybe reasonable people can disentangle the work of art from the action of the artist, but it is fair if some don’t want to do it. What is almost indisputable is how Parker chose to handle it—by hissing and spitting whenever anyone brought up the deceased victim of the decades-old alleged rape. Then he blamed the film’s failure on the efforts of black feminists to undermine his message—and consequently—black art. Or black history. Or something. To be honest, I have no idea because I don’t even mess with Parker like that anymore.




Kanye West

Donald Trump meets Kanye West at Trump Tower in New York City on Dec. 13, 2016.

Twitter


Yeezy started 2016 flirting with getting thrown off our kickball team when he attacked Wiz Khalifa and his newborn son on Twitter. Luckily, Amber Rose swooped in and put him in his place, revealing his sexual fetishes to the world.

Ye fluctuated in and out of the good graces of the black-barbershop constituency all year. We liked how he aired out Taylor Swift and that he gave us goddess Teyana Taylor Flashdancing in the “Fade” video. We even tried to overlook his midconcert Trump rallies and the fact that the exorbitantly overpriced Yeezy fashion line looks like Banana Republic training uniforms for Jedi knights.


But he’s gone all in with Donald Trump, and black people finally stopped ascribing his antics to uninformed, amateur mental-health diagnoses gleaned from TMZ clips and Ellen appearances. We realized that Kanye might be battling depression or mental illness …

Or he might just be a f—kboy.

Either way, we don’t mess with him anymore.



Wypipo

Screenshot from MTV’s White People documentary

MTV


No, not white people. Race is a social construct, and judging people based on the color of their skin is not just ignorant but evil. No, I’m talking about wypipo.

Wypipo went all out in 2016 and gave us a record year for the production of white tears. They spilled gallons of them because Beyoncé used the term “Becky.” They boohooed so hard that Black Lives Matter became an “anti-police terror group.” They had a tantrum about Bernie Sanders’ loss. They freed the cabal who killed Freddie Gray. They acquitted Walter Scott’s cold-blooded assassin twice. You know who wypipo are:

The angry hordes of people who jumped in on a Native American protest for a pipeline that ran near their land but still sit strangely silent about the continued poisoning of Flint, Mich., are wypipo. The puppy-eyed poseurs who wept at a mass murder in Charleston, S.C., but aligned themselves with the “alt-right,” white supremacy movement that inspired the mass murderer are wypipo. The lying-ass women who said they were “with her” and publicly eschewed racism and sexism, only to close the ballot-box curtains and select a man who thinks Mexicans are rapists, Muslims are terrorists and black people alternate between uneducated shooters and unemployed guttersnipes who can’t avoid getting shot—they’re wypipo. The bleeding hearts who thought they could make up for all that bloodshed, prejudice and hate by wearing safety pins? They’re wypipo, too.


And if our ancestors taught us nothing, they passed down the lessons of strength and perseverance. There are some who will call this angry or racist, but that is a ridiculous statement. If we black people held hate in our hearts, the struggle for civil rights would consist solely of black soldiers sharpening machetes and gathering shotguns. We have come to realize that placing our trust in a system that openly seeks to marginalize us is futile. We do not hate wypipo.

We just don’t mess with them anymore.