Notwithstanding the fact that two very smart brothas (Damon Young and the late comedian Patrice O’Neal) instructed me never to trust a black man without facial hair—we (black people) collectively stopped messing with Taye Diggs for a very different reason.
Diggs made headlines, and our s—t list, when he said he doesn’t want his biracial son to be referred to as “black.” I’m always bewildered when stars feel they need to trumpet their half-cocked opinions to the masses, as if anyone is checking for real talk from Taye Diggs. Personally, I was tired of hearing all my homeboys constantly wonder when the dude who was friends with Brown Sugar-era Sanaa Lathan—but never tried to hit that—would finally release his philosophies on race and ethnicity.
I can logically believe that a man with a white wife isn’t necessarily filled with self-hate, but when that man effectively says, “I don’t want my son to be viewed the same way the world views me, and my father and his father … ,” I think someone should step in and say, “You know they’re recording this, right? People can hear you.” We heard you loud and clear, Taye. That’s why we stopped messing with you.
Anyway, thinking about the Diggs made me think about who else would be on this list. Who else did the congregation of Negroes decide to boot off the island this year?
Meek Mill
He got bodied by a singing n—ga. That’s it. That’s the reason. I know it’s shallow and petty, but if you get beat down by anyone and that person’s next move is to release a video doing the white-boy shuffle in an empty room wearing a cardigan and Dockers, we can’t f—k with you anymore.
I’m gonna reveal a secret to you all: Drake’s beatdown of Meek Mill sent the dark-skinned-brother community into a tailspin. First Steph Curry wins the NBA MVP, then this. One minute Meek was the hottest, hardest rapper on the biggest tour in hip-hop (or his girl’s tour), and then, poof, he f—ked it all up. On Twitter! It’s almost like his homey Will Smith waved that light pen from Men in Black in front of our eyes and Meek was erased from our memories and Nikki Minaj’s vagina history. Meek, you’re from Philly, dog. You’ve dropped below Will Smith on the totem pole of hard-ass Philly n—gas to somewhere between Charli Baltimore and Lee Daniels. Speaking of Philly …
Bill Cosby
This was a hard year for Pill Bill. When decades-old allegations of rape resurfaced, it seemed like black people were going to ride with Cosby for minute. Those of us not offended by his “pull up your pants” rants were going to stick up for the man who laced our childhoods with memories of Mushmouth and fine-ass Lisa Bonet and Pudding Pops (n—gas wasn’t f—king with pudding before our Uncle Bill made it cool).
The black narrative was that “they” were trying to set him up because he was going to buy NBC or start the first black-owned network with Oprah Winfrey or resurrect the corpses of Michael Jackson and Sojourner Truth or some other unbelievable s—t. We thought it was just another conspiracy until allegations started coming out of the woodwork like roaches when you turn out the lights at Wiz Khalifa’s house. (I don’t care how clean he is, or where he lives; Wiz just looks like he has roaches at the crib.)
After Jill Scott took back her Twitter rant, the only people left standing in Cosby’s corner were Camille, Theo and Rudy (I know, but to black America, those are their real names). Even Vanessa abandoned ship, although it’s still just a case of he said, she said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. She said. (Add 42 more.)
Donald Trump
This list is not limited to black people. We used to love Donald Trump because, like many people we f—k with, the Donald likes gaudy gold s—t, owns a lot of flashy cars while living in an apartment, and loves to brag about how he’s getting money and bad bitches. Now that I think about it, Trump might be a gangster rapper.
Anyway, Trump ran for president and went full Pat Buchanan on us. The truth is, black people are used to finding out that their white friend is secretly racist, but Trump went from walling out and rounding up Mexicans to registering Muslims to OK’ing the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester. Say what you will about the Orange Fuhrer’s lack of a plan for immigration reform, but his racism is comprehensive as hell. We just can’t f—k with him anymore.
Future
If you tied me up, held a rusty knife to my penis and told me you’d cut it off unless I named a Future song, I couldn’t do it. I don’t even know if Future is a rapper or a singer. The only thing I know about Future is that it’s widely agreed that he’s a f—k boy.
I can’t say what I would do if I had to listen to Ciara sing every day, so I have a place of sympathy for Future, but having Twitter fights and throwing baby-mama shade in the press seems very bitch-n—ga-ish to me. Plus, you have to have impeccable f—k-boy credentials for a woman to leave you for a man who’s giving her no D. But, you know, they say it’s not the size of the boat. … That’s what I’d have to keep telling myself after my kidnappers found out I didn’t know any Future songs.
Stephen A. Smith
We liked serial-sayer-of-stupid-s—t Stephen A. Smith (that’s his official title) before he started building his collection of I’m-smarter-than-you-stupid-n—gas, idiotic quotes and hyperbolic synonyms. Smith is one of those people who think that intelligence is determined by the number of syllables they can cram into a sentence. First it was his statement about how some women get their asses beat because they provoke men. Then it was his Cosby-esque defense of Martin O’Malley and “All Lives Matter” by pointing the finger at black people.
He finally hit an all-time low when Kevin Durant called him out for blatantly lying, and Smith’s only defense was to threaten Durant on live TV. Black people took offense to that like when a bully picks on the quiet kid in class: Why is he picking on K.D.? You know Kevin don’t bother nobody, so black people don’t f—k with Stephen A. Smith.
Raven-Symoné
Raven-Symoné’s ghetto pass was actually revoked in 2014 when she told Oprah that she wasn’t black or African American, but we kinda let her slide because she was Olivia on The Cosby Show, she hung with Mr. Cooper and she was so Raven. We gave her the Great Value-brand version of the benefit of the doubt that we gave Cosby for forming so many of our childhood memories, but she couldn’t stop herself. We had our collective side eye watching and waiting for her to—in the words of her very own father—“say some dumb s—t,” and she didn’t disappoint. After she said that she would discriminate against someone who had a black-sounding name and then defended the news anchor who said that Michelle Obama looked like an ape, we crossed her off the list of friends who can come to the cookout—and the list of people we f—k with.
Ben Carson
Remember when Cuba Gooding Jr.—another dude we sorta don’t f—k with—played Ben Carson in Gifted Hands and Carson became black-history trivia? We liked the soft-spoken medical genius then, but we didn’t know that Carson was a right-wing conservative who went around trying to stab people in the d—k while concocting theories about the pyramids being built by historical Jews as self-rising flour. Carson’s litany of falsehoods has been well-cataloged, but after he tried to convince us that free health care is as bad as slavery and that he saved white people during the 1968 race riots, we left Carson alone. Personally, I cut him off after he threatened my penis when I didn’t know any Future songs. Thank God I was wearing that belt.