For me, success is when I'm making a contribution and fully engaging all of my talents. In terms of the key quality, it's being willing to continue to believe in yourself even when other people don't, and being able to fail and to come back.
Melissa Harris-PerryBill Cosby was charged with sexual assault. No matter the outcome of this case this moment is an important public acknowledgement that even though many years have passed, there`s still the responsibility to take charges of sexual assault seriously.
Melissa Harris-PerryI think the idea that you're somehow rejecting whiteness if you don't identify yourself as biracial is odd because everybody engages in whiteness. If you live in America, you're doing whiteness all the time, even if you have no white people in your family.
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 Republicans don't need black folks to vote Republican, they just need them to not vote.
Melissa Harris-PerryIn a moment when young black voters were key to the election and the reelection of a black president, when the Department of Justice has been led these years by the first two African-American attorneys general, when many big cities boast African-American league prosecutors and police chiefs and mayors, even in this moment, why is it that it still feels to so many young people that there is more power for change on the court than in the courts?
Melissa Harris-Perry