Malia and Sasha Obama (Ron Sachs/Pool/Getty Images)

Smart Black kids are regularly teased by other Blacks for "acting White" and ostracized because of their academic achievements


It can not be denied that some Black people have experienced this. But creating and promoting a narrative that this type of intentional academic self-sabotage happens all the time — like there are sentinels on every corner in the hood waiting for a kid with a bookbag to walk by so they can splash white paint on him and inject him with liquid crack — is both wrong (because…it's wrong) and dangerous (because it vilifies working and lower class Black people and reinforces some of the worst stereotypes about us).

Black people don't care about Black-on-Black crime

Tell that to everyone who's ever attended a dozen or so candlelight vigils. Or dozens of stop-the-violence protest marches and rallies. Or all the people who've organized and participated in things like Midnight Basketball. Or all the community-based initiatives in every inner-city in the country specifically devoted to finding ways to stop crime. Or all the little Black kids who grew up to be lawyers or politicians or police officers because they grew up around violence and vowed to devote their lives to doing something about it because they didn't want any more little Black kids to have to see the things they saw.


Black men generally suck at being dads

From Think Progress

Most of the CDC’s previous research on family life — which the agency explores as an important contributor to public health and child development — has focused exclusively on mothers. But the latest data finds that the stereotypical gender imbalance in this area doesn’t hold true, and dads are just as hands-on when it comes to raising their kids. That includes African-American fathers. In fact, in its coverage of the study, the Los Angeles Times noted that the results “defy stereotypes about black fatherhood” because the CDC found that black dads are more involved with their kids on a daily basis than dads from other racial groups.

Black women do not support and encourage Black men the way other women (White, Asian, Indian, etc) support and encourage their men

Perhaps the most ridiculous myth of all, because aside from Florida Evans from Good Times — who really was the Albert Einstein of hating — there's no real evidence to support it and literally centuries worth of evidence to refute it.


Successful Black men are more likely to marry a non-Black woman than a Black one

Let's forget for a moment that the guy who created perhaps the most famous line about this myth ("And when you get on/ he leave your ass for a White girl") actually went out and did it. The vast majority of Black men — rich, poor, whatever — who choose to marry do marry Black women.


Black people hate the police

We (Black people) just hate that some police officers seem to hate us, and that the criminal justice system is structured in a way that often protects these hateful few and even encourages their behavior.


Black people hate White people

We (Black people) just hate that some White people seem to hate us, and that the criminal justice system, the government, the banking industry, the education system, the legal system, the financial system, and the prison system are all structured in a way that often protects these hateful few and even encourages their behavior.


Black people are bad tippers

For argument's sake, let's concede that we (Black people) generally tip servers and bartenders less than other demographics tend to. Without context, this would seem pretty damning. With context, though? Perhaps this phenomenon is a direct reaction to a very real history of getting substandard service…which leads to more substandard service because of an expectation of how Black customers are going to tip.


And maybe, like with many other things, the perception of the frequency of certain misbehaviors committed by Black people is far greater than the reality.

The ratio of eligible Black men to eligible Black women in your city is a number too ridiculous to even mention


While it is true that there is a numbers imbalance, it's nowhere near the seven-to-ones and 12-to-ones and 253,234-to-ones we seem to regurgitate. Also, believing things are this dire becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because if enough people believe these "facts" to be true, they'll start acting like they're true. This is how Diva Dudes are born.

Black people who attend HBCUs are ill-equipped to navigate corporate America

Of all the reasons to choose to attend a PWI instead of an HBCU, this is the worst. Mainly because…


A) It implies that "being in the vicinity of White people" is a more valuable college experience than actually learning shit in college.

B) It presumes that predominately White corporations are the only ones available to work in and/or worthy of working for


C) It makes the assumption that whatever a young person needs to know about "White people" needs to be learned in college and couldn't have possibly been learned over a lifetime of living in America.