If 2020 has shown us anything, it’s that there are some folks who deserve to be left behind.

In this year alone, we’ve lived through a global pandemic, experienced some grade-A ignorance at the hands of our loved ones, beloved celebrities, and more, had Black celebrities literally endorse the face of hatred, seen white women attempting to cosplay as Black and much more. As we begin to manifest a better 2021 on the trails of the Negro Solstice, let’s make a pact to leave a few people in our dust where they belong. 

While we don't advocate any Regina George-like cruelty, the mean girl had an inspirational way with boundaries when it came to that lunch table. Thus, we've compiled a 2020-informed list of five types of people who shouldn’t be able to sit with you in the new year.

The 12% of Black people who supported Donald Trump

It wasn’t enough for us to deal with the racist antics of our mayonnaise-infused brethren who supported Donald Trump but it’s a complete slap in the face when it’s our own people. While Ice Cube and Lil Wayne caught countless side-eyes for collaborating with Trump, we need to weed out anyone in our own circle who may have voted for the vitriolic one-term president. Your Black friends who supported Trump or were somehow "undecided" in the 2020 election need to be left there to think about their foolishness.

People who try to be too "down" for the cause

Sadly, we're well accustomed to culture vultures wanting to be so "down" with our culture that they go so far as to replicate said culture. We’re used to seeing these clowns dupe the world into believing they are Black people but Jessica Krug took it three steps further. Falsely portraying Blackness from perspectives of North Africa, the United States and Caribbean culture, Krug made every attempt to trade in her mediocrity for faux Black excellence, even duping some of the Black people who held her close.

In 2021, make sure there aren't any Jessicas in your circle. You know, people who are obsessed with your Blackness to the point of adopting a faux Black identity. Anyone who feels the need to voice their advocacy through cosplaying Black people can reside in 2020 because there’s no place for that kind of clownery in the new year.

Anti-Black Black people

For the last several hundred centuries, there have been Black folks who proudly proclaim their anti-Blackness through thinly-veiled displays of ignorance. Terry Crews happens to be one of those folks in our generation. Sadly, there are many people in our circles who have those same ideologies and they need to be cut off. To suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement be filtered to protect white fragility serves as a one-way ticket back to 2020 alongside Crews. Maybe he, Daniel Cameron and Candace Owens can start The Too Coon Crew music group or something. 

The Boosies of the world

Our least favorite rapper, Boosie Badazz, proved that not only is he transphobic in every sense of the word but he’s an advocate for predatory behavior as well. Making headlines this year for berating Dwyane Wade’s advocacy for his transgender child, particularly after having once orchestrated the sexual undertaking of his nephews and son at the hands of an adult woman, are no simple transgressions. 

What is most terrifying is that there have been many folks who see nothing wrong with Boosie's behavior. If someone in your tribe is in support of this literal criminal behavior, you need to alert the authorities and distance yourself from this toxicity immediately. For these reasons, your problematic homies, Boosie and his simplistic bars cannot board the 2021 bus with us.

Friends who don't support Black women

Black women have been the most disrespected community on the face of the earth since the beginning of time and 2020 was no different. Whether it was scolding them for purchasing Birkin bags or accusing them of lying about gunshot wounds, this year has shown us that nothing has changed. There are many people trouncing around our social circles exhibiting that same anti-Black women rhetoric to Black women who are not wealthy celebrities and they need to be left in 2020 like Tory Lanez. Black liberation cannot and will not be achieved by subverting Black women and anyone who believes this does not deserve to move forward to the new year with us.

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