Melissa Harris-Perry Quotes & Sayings

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? — Melissa Harris-Perry

The [Bernie] Sanders campaign became the center of a good old-fashioned political controversy. His coverage went from no news to bad news with the revelation that four Sanders staffers took advantage of a software glitch to access confidential voter data belonging to the Hillary Clinton campaign. — Melissa Harris-Perry

I hate to play YouTube. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Once it's everybody's responsibility and not just the household's we start making better investments. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Housing affects everything, and we continue to live in very, very segregated communities. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

According to the CDC, more than one in three women and one in four men in the United States have been victims of domestic violence. It is a widespread public health problem, and every year 1,600 women and 700 men are killed by their intimate partners. One of the biggest risk factors that domestic violence will become fatal is the presence of a gun. — Melissa Harris-Perry

We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of these are our children. 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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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-Perry

Adults who enter into public life implicitly consent to having less privacy, but their families - especially their children - should not be treated callously or thoughtlessly. — Melissa Harris-Perry

The leading non-establishment Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, is just sailing past [establishment Republican candidates] in the polls. He is still surging. He is basically killing them all. — Melissa Harris-Perry

The Republicans don't need black folks to vote Republican, they just need them to not vote. — Melissa Harris-Perry

She had me at Sweet Valley High. Gay playfully crosses the borders between pop culture consumer and critic, between serious academic and lighthearted sister-girl, between despair and optimism, between good and bad ... How can you help but love her? — Melissa Harris-Perry

Politics are a part of athletics now. Politics is a part of everything. And athletics is no exception. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

I am a supporter of much of the Arab Spring, as a matter of indigenous self-determination. So, I see the United States' role in Libya as an appropriately restrained one in providing some international support for the work of those trying to bring democratic change against a regime that has undoubtedly been dictatorial, particularly in the past twenty years. — Melissa Harris-Perry

A big part of the Republican 2016 race is now basically a bunch of establishment Republicans going after each other. Jeb Bush going after Marco Rubio, and the governors, Chris Christie going after Marco Rubio. Rubio firing back, John Kasich going after Jeb Bush. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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-Perry

You just have to be strong if you're a black woman. — Melissa Harris-Perry

The 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 we've torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it's 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-Perry

I would want to know that my daughter is going to enjoy a long, happy and healthy life. — Melissa Harris-Perry

I learned that you can't write a book in the margins of your life. I'd forgotten how much uninterrupted time it takes to write chapters, and how you have to push everything else aside and really focus. — Melissa Harris-Perry

The debate was a chance for senator [Bernie] Sanders to have a game-changing moment to recapture the news cycle and build momentum going into 2016 and he took his best shot at having a moment. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Popular films are so powerful and compelling that it's often easier to accept their versions of history than the much more complicated true stories. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Drink lots of water, and nap. I've made some really big messes along the way, whether on the academic side or on the media side. It hasn't been a straight path. But a lot of those mess-ups have led to opportunities, so I guess I'd say be fearless, and keep bottled water with you, so you don't dehydrate. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Stereotypes work to help divide women from recognizing their common interests. — Melissa Harris-Perry

I 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-Perry

The removal of Bill Cosby from his cultural pedestal seems pretty complete. — Melissa Harris-Perry

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. — Melissa Harris-Perry

The problem is that many of our policymakers want to base sweeping laws on those feelings. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Undoubtedly, the biggest influence on my life is my mom, followed pretty closely by my dad. — Melissa Harris-Perry

It actually does matter what people think about you. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Having a white parent undoubtedly makes for a different childhood experience than having two black parents. — Melissa Harris-Perry