You might like to lump all men into a ball of inescapable dishonesty, flippantly declaring them liars. Broadly speaking, you’d be right. Mankind has been lying to one another since the dawn of time. Human ancestors lied to survive and navigate complex social structures.

Even in those early days, lies were used as forms of entertainment and this culture of lying continues throughout the world, each generation becoming more sophisticated at painting untruths.

While no magic can ever tell you if a man or woman is being completely honest, you can be sure that whenever someone lies, they do so for a reason. Sometimes you can get behind the reason, like a lie told as a prank or in jest. Other times you are not trying to hear that. Relationship lies tend to be more the latter but that doesn’t change the fact that your guy has a perfectly rationalized reason to lie.

Peep the seven reasons men lie in relationships:

Source: Jamericahmuslim.wordpress.com

“Protect your feelings”

A man will go out of his way to keep his girl from feeling pain, anger or heaven forbid, tears. To keep his lady from crying, he’ll even lay his moral integrity on the line and tell her something that isn’t completely true.

“Honey, do these pants make me look fat?”

“No, baby, your bum is as tight as it was in high school.”

Franchesca Ramsey’s YouTube video, “Shyte White Girls Say to Black Girls” might have come along a little late in the history of the “Shyte say” meme but it’s certainly created the most controversy. While all of the videos paint a very stereotypical portrait of the group they’re imitating, Franchesca’s video has been flagged as “reverse racism.” She even went on Anderson Cooper’s new show to speak about the video and defend herself against claims that statements made in the video were racist.

Check out a short clip from the show below

Racist, eh? The word gets thrown around entirely too much, by people of all races, that perhaps we’ve become desensitized to it. For those of you who might need a refresher course racism is, according to Merriam Webster, “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” I had to read that a couple of times so to state it more plainly, racism means a person believes that because they are of a particular race they are superior to a person of another race.

A second definition states that one can show prejudice or discrimination to a particular person because of one’s racist beliefs.

Judging by those definitions it’s clear that Franchesca’s video does not fall into either one of those categories. She is not stating that black people or anybody is better than the people who make these statements to black women. What it does do is highlight some of the ignorance believed and expressed by some people…who happen to be white.

Very few things in this world are absolute. When the “Shyte Black Girls Say” video came out, I didn’t see myself in 99 percent of the jokes he made. (I’m not going to lie, I love to say “It’s hot/cold in here.” or “That’s my song, turn that up.”) But I still found humor in it because I’ve heard plenty of black girls say those same things. And if those crying “reverse racism” were honest with themselves they’d find the same is true about Franchesca’s video.

Not for one minute do I believe that all white people express such ignorance as some of the statements made in her video; but I’ve also seen,  experienced and been privy to conversations about enough of those comments to know that there are white people, whether they mean harm or not, who have used some of those exact phases or asked those same questions. There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. Our experiences on this earth only explain so much. There is a problem, however, in being confronted with your ignorance and choosing to ignore it while pointing the finger at the one trying to educate you.

In all honesty, I can’t help but feel like white people, who are coming to the racism game a little late, might not truly know what the word, the belief and the corresponding actions might look like.

What do you think, was Franchesca’s video racist? Have you seen or heard people using the “racist” term incorrectly?

More on Madame Noire!

• Michelle Obama’s No Angry Black Woman and Neither Am I
• Shyte Natural Hair Girls Need to Stop Saying and Doing…
• 9 Things I Wish I Would Have Known Before Jumping the Broom
• 9 Artists Who Should Have Blown Up Big…But Didn’t
• Our Favorite Word?… Girl
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha: Trying Not to Hate Him & Saving It

As much as we all try to be individuals, rep a certain set, or accessorize a sense of style, there are ties that bind us together into something collectively called the human condition. When you strip away the hypocrisies we build in order to maintain a sense of order and responsibility i.e. society, we’ve all got the same basic fears, desires and downright ludicrous habits.

This next list is a reminder of those quirky, sad, humorous and silly experiences that just about everyone can cosign.

There’s a little hater inside all of us, some much more so than others. Maybe you feel bad about it but despite your best intentions, the jealousy, envy and displeasure you have for others oozes out into the open.

Truth be told, it’s better to let it out in the open than let it fester in your heart and mind. But the last thing you want to do is make a spectacle of how much you’re hatin’ on someone, so here’s a few ways to dispense your frivolous displeasure for that she-creep at work or the jerk-in-law types, while keeping it moving, and most importantly–civil.

On it’s surface, Halloween seems to be a relatively benign American holiday with plenty of admirable qualities. It’s kid-centric, there is lots of celebrating going on, and doesn’t urge you to spend needlessly as some other holidays do.

But there are lot of discrepancies in how this ghoulish holiday is celebrated in black neighborhoods versus white ones. Our experiences tend to color how we feel about things, and unfortunately October 31st just doesn’t bring the jolliest of times. Other holidays fair much better. Thanksgiving has tons of food. Christmas brings gifts and giving. Valentine’s Day is romantic. But Halloween has few things that make you feel warm and fuzzy. Quite the opposite in fact.

Somehow, Halloween and everything that it represents creates a huge disconnect in black communities everywhere. Here’s a humorous look at how:

By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

Getting ahead in the business world requires both the skills needed to do your job, and the ability to navigate the social environment. The latter part of the equation is what most intelligent people have trouble with, as the capacity to work hard and smart often fails to bring the expected rewards. The prevalence of this phenomenon has launched a huge industryof books that decipher the unspoken rules for rising high in the corporate jungle. Unlike popular tomes like “The Art of War,” a restrained text re-purposed for inspiration by ambitious execs, the literature on the list below gives a raw take on corporate America. Each of the 10 Business Books Your Boss Doesn’t Want You to Read outlines the cruel rules of the game, with tips to recognize them before they are used against you. Don’t be afraid of the boss — maneuver into the boss’ role with these little-known guides, which are recommended by Business Insider:

1. 21 Dirty Tricks at Work
This text will prevent bosses and co-workers for taking credit for your hard work. It has been called “simply the best book ever written about office politics.”

2. The Peter Principle
Based on observations made in nuclear power plants, “The Peter Principle” outlines the theory that most bosses are promoted from doing something they are good at into a position in which they lack competency. Once you realize your boss is not the god of his profession, but a struggling human being who is likely overwhelmed, you can relate in a more equitable manner that advances your position.

3. How to Lie With Statistics
Numbers don’t lie, people often say — but they can be manipulated to tell your preferred story. Your boss might not want you to read this, because some of the excuses given about why you have not received a raise might seem shady once you are better able to parse data.

“Who the biggest liars, men or women? Women are the biggest liars! Look at you, all of you. All of you are liars! Masters of the lie- the visual lie. Look at you. You got on heels- you ain’t that tall. You got on makeup, your face don’t look like that. You got a weave- your hair ain’t that long. You got a Wonderbra on- your titties ain’t that big. Everything about YOU is a lie, and you expect me to tell the truth?!? Fawk you!”  – Chris Rock

Ah ladies! We always get on the fellas for lying. But let’s be real- we lie too. And though many of us ladies do strive to be honest and forthright, sometimes we get put in positions where we’d rather not tell the truth- at least not at that exact moment in time. So what do we do?  Sometime we (gasp) lie. But in our defense, they’re mostly little white lies, half-truths. So nobody’s really getting hurt. And though I have to agree with Chris Rock that we women are masters of the visual lie- I actually like to call it the “beautiful illusion.” Personally I still think men are the biggest liars. But maybe that’s just because I’m a woman and choose to stay loyal to the sisterhood  Here are 5 funny and sometimes obvious lies we women tell men.

Where do you get your hair “did?” Is it some fancy ritzy place or do you go to a hood salon?  Hood salons are so fun, but they can be kind of a drag sometimes too.  Not sure whether or not your salon qualifies as hood?

If you can identify with five or more of these signs, then you must admit that your salon is hood!

When you were younger, you really didn’t think past 21. Now that you’ve crossed that threshold, all this “getting old stuff” is pretty new. Why does a bottle of wine and your couch sound a lot more appealing than a night at the club?  Are those laugh lines? Why didn’t that bouncer ask you for your driver’s license?

You have questions. We have answers.

We have here 10 sure signs that you are getting old.  Can you relate to any of this?

(The Root) — It is always a good time to talk about racism and poisonous images pumping through the mass-media pipeline. What is most interesting is the traditional but unpredictable source of the trouble. Whenever critics point at Tea Party posters of Barack Obama as a witch doctor or as a garishly dressed pimp attending a ball at the White House with Michelle, it is easy to realize that the Tea Party, Fox News and the rest of their ilk are not the worst offenders. Hip-hop minstrelsy, taken to an extreme, has repeatedly outdone all crude, vindictive and simply clumsy whites whenever it comes to dehumanizing black people. Hip-hop obviously, and no less insultingly, does it better.

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