I do think that we have to be careful not to assume that getting a perm or wearing a blonde wig is a desire for whiteness. It may or may not be. Listen, I live in a poor black neighborhood where women wear blue hair, green hair, and all kinds of stuff. So, I simply see it as a different set of choices.
Melissa Harris-PerryWe were looking for the Rick Perries, the Scott Walkers, the Bobby Jindals, all to probably still be on the stage.They`re all gone and [Donald] Trump has sucked the oxygen out of race and made it a national race courtesy a little bit of NBC making him a celebrity, second of all, just his personality.
Melissa Harris-PerryThe land on which they (the Founding Fathers) formed this Union was stolen. The hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times weโve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But itโs ours, all of it. The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.
Melissa Harris-PerryIn the 1990s, Michael Jordan was the preeminent athlete in the country. And when the product with his name on it seemed to be linked to crime and violence in poor communities, many called on him to address it. They asked him to weigh in on robberies, on kids robbed for their high-priced Air Jordan sneakers. But he wouldn`t.
Melissa Harris-PerryI just keep thinking of how many times I`ve heard Ferguson effect. And I`ve heard it because of protests, officers are afraid to do their job because of - because of a YouTube effect.
Melissa Harris-PerryMaybe this Democratic president[Barack Obama] did and can get comprehensive health care reform passed, but notice, Medicaid is not expanded in any of these dark red states. The Republican Party may not be able to repeal Obamacare, but it certainly, through its state legislatures and governorships, has managed to halt Obamacare`s full impact.
Melissa Harris-Perry