Melissa Harris-Perry Quotes

So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

From childhood forward, our hair is one of the most critical, defining aspects of our embodied selves as black women: how we get it done... how we have to focus on it... the questions we have to answer about it... and so forth.

The folks like myself that do this for a living, we were expecting a regular campaign had built the databases, done all the new social media, learned our lessons from [Barack] Obama whipping us twice on how to do voter contact, and then Donald Trump gets in it and turns it into a national election.

I do feel like there`s this Republican Party establishment is in disarray. That`s the story that the Donald Trump surge seems to tell.

Think of how hard it would be to create a gender-based movement across racial lines as long as one group believes that it has to be strong while seeing the other group as passive and weak. We could also go into the stereotypes of the saucy, mercurial Latina and the docile, easily-dominated Asian woman.

In 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?

I think the most critical needs of the African-American communities aren't being addressed primarily because of decisions being made by Republican Congressional leaders.

With Donald Trump, you know, what I would tell you is that he`s got shelf life like I never would have guessed.

While the establishment Republican candidates are busy doing this, attacking each other, and doing everything they can to bring each other down, they seem to be missing the bull`s-eye. They`re missing the targets.

The removal of Bill Cosby from his cultural pedestal seems pretty complete.

Even if you think it is right for Bill Cosby to face charges, it`s impossible to ignore that the system which just charged him is a system that has been indicted by a national social movement, as being unable or unwilling to deliver meaningful and just outcomes.

Maybe 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.

Bill 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.

In 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.

A recent analysis of election coverage by the Tindall report which tracks network nicely news programs found that Bernie Sanders received just ten minutes out of 857 minutes of campaign coverage in 2015. Compare that to 234 minutes for Donald Trump, and 113 for Hillary Clinton.

It actually does matter what people think about you.

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.

Former Governor [Jeb] Bush calling for an end all together of the Supplemental Nutrition Program, or what some people call food stamps program, as part of an overhaul.

Look, I grew up in, went to school in, and now live in the American South, and southern white women are interesting, complex and quirky, even the ones with racial anxieties.