So, I woke up this morning feeling groggy and moody because there was a fire in my apartment complex last night. So, I didn’t sleep well. However, like most mornings, I got up hoping that the world would be a little less racist, a little less sexist, a little less homophobic, and a little less greedy. Hmmph, but this is not that morning. So, after having a cup of rooibos tea this morning (my favorite tea because it is not caffeinated), I turned on my TV and what did I find? An end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? An end to systemic rape in Darfur? An end to poverty in Haiti? An end to police surveillance and suppression of black youth in Chicago? Oh no, none of these “peaceful” things. What I found was a lie . . . a terrible falsehood . . . an egregious fabrication of the truth . . . and what my grandmother calls, “speaking outside the side of your neck.”

President Barack Obama has won The Nobel Peace Prize. Really. Seriously. You got to be kidding. Since when does being the Commander and Chief of two wars mean peace? Since when does recoiling from universal health care mean peace? Since when does supporting Israel the state mean peace? Since when? Perhaps, The Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s idea of peace is akin to what my grandmother would call “telling a story.” You see when I was a little girl my grandmother did not allow us to say the word lie. Using the word lie was a right reserved only for big people, you know people over 30. Instead of using the word lie, we were forced by our 5 ft. grandmother to say, “You’re telling a story” instead of saying, “You’re lying.” Using the phrase, you’re telling a story, properly conveyed my lack of authority to convey the truth of social reality and also showed the inequity of power between my grandmother and me. She had the power to make a lie a story.

To be honest, even as a little girl I thought this was a stupid because we were not orating a story, we were lying, L-Y-I-N-G, lying so that we didn’t get beat with a switch from the local rose’ bush. Mind you, I’m not calling my grandmother stupid I know she was only trying to instill

good manners in her wayward granddaughters who were determined to be provocative in every way. However, whichever way you slice it we were lying . Using the phrase, “You’re telling a story,” makes a lie palatable and socially acceptable because who does not like a good story every now and again? So, perhaps, The Noble Peace Prize Committee is “telling a story” about President Barack Obama. Perhaps, there is some powerful entity—The International Monetary Fund or Wal-Mart—who like my 5ft grandmother is forcing The Noble Peace Prize Committee to “tell a story” about how “peaceful” President Barack Obama is.

Yep, there is a lot of lying storytelling going on today.