Latest Melissa Harris-Perry Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• 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

  Opportunity, Naps, Media

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Believe, Keys, People

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• Undoubtedly, the biggest influence on my life is my mom, followed pretty closely by my dad.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Mom, Dad, Life Is

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I'm horrible with money. I make bad business decisions every hour of the day.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Decision, Hours, Horrible

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I would want to know that my daughter is going to enjoy a long, happy and healthy life.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Daughter, Long, Healthy

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• The Republicans don't need black folks to vote Republican, they just need them to not vote.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Black, Needs, Vote

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• It actually does matter what people think about you.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Thinking, People, Doe

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Thinking, Decision, Leader

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Thinking, Blue, Hair

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Determination, Spring, Past

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Hair, Self, Childhood

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I can understand how someone might read wearing a blonde wig as a desire to be white, but I suspect that the same shaming smirk can happen if you wear a big afro or any number of other hairstyles.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  White, Numbers, Desire

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I don't think that a white woman is in denial when she dyes her hair blonde. And I actually think we are the most varied in terms of the choices we make about our hair. Some of it may be political or psychological, but an awful lot of it is just aesthetic, how we like to view ourselves when we look in the mirror.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Thinking, Views, White

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I don't know what people mean when they ask me whether I'm embracing my whiteness. Whiteness is ubiquitous.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Mean, People, Ask Me

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• Having a white parent undoubtedly makes for a different childhood experience than having two black parents.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Two, White, Childhood

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Thinking, America, Ideas

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Strong, Believe, Thinking

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  School, White, Interesting

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• Stereotypes work to help divide women from recognizing their common interests.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Helping, Common, Stereotype

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• Housing affects everything, and we continue to live in very, very segregated communities.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Community, Housing

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Powerful, Stories, Film

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• 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

  Book, Writing, Focus

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• You just have to be strong if you're a black woman.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Strong, Black, Black Women

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I 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-Perry

  Jobs, Thinking, Ferguson

  Source: www.msnbc.com

• I had a friend say to me the other day, I hate when I see Jonathan Metzl on your show because I know it`s bad news. I know that there has been a shooting.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Hate, News, Shooting

  Source: www.msnbc.com