Melissa Harris-Perry (1973- ), formerly known as Melissa Harris-Lacewell, is a Black American professor of political science. On MSNBC she was the host of “Melissa Harris-Perry” (2012-2016), a news talk show, also known as #Nerdland.
She has taught at:
- 1999-2005: University of Chicago
- 2006-2010: Princeton
- 2011-2014: Tulane
- 2014- : Wake Forest
She has written two books:
- 2004: Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought
- 2011: Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
She also writes for The Nation, a White left-wing magazine.
#Nerdland appeared on Saturday and Sunday mornings. She used words like “marginalized” and “cisgendered”. She invited Sean Bell’s widow to the show. Amazing stuff for US television. Yet she never seemed to say much bad about President Obama:
- When she and her guests talked about the “epidemic” of public school closings in Black neighbourhoods, no one pointed out how it was driven by Obama’s Race To The Top Program.
- When Edward Snowden uncovered widespread spying by the US government on its own citizens, she made it about Snowden, not about Obama violating human rights.
- When Cornel West took Obama to task for doing little about poverty, she made it about West, not about Obama’s poverty policies.
It was not her MSNBC overlords who were making her do this either – the last one is from 2011, a year before #Nerdland even was.
Obama Era: It seems she was hired to help silence Black discontent over Obama’s policies. After all, MSNBC also gave a show to Al Sharpton, another Obama apologist. It got rid of Cenk Uygur, an Obama critic. In the week before the 2012 election, MSNBC did not report a single bad story about Obama, making it more unfair and more unbalanced than even Fox News.
Post-Obama: Now that Obama is on his way out, it comes as no surprise that Al Sharpton’s show has been moved to the weekend and that #Nerdland is no more. Joy Reid lost her show too. So did Touré. The only Black person who still regularly appears during the week is Tamron Hall, and she seems to have little control over what she reports.
Meanwhile, MSNBC just hired a former spokesman for Ted Cruz, a hard-right Republican, and cannot seem to get enough of Donald Trump, who is openly racist.
#Nerdland last appeared on February 7th. On that day Harris-Perry did a piece on Beyonce’s “Formation” video. MSNBC had wanted her to do only election news instead. Her producer had to fight for it.
The following two weekends, MSNBC put on election news in place of her show. They would not tell her why or return her telephone calls. Nor would they bring her on air to comment on the election itself – even though she is a professor of political science!
They wanted to keep her on, but did not want to give her back control of the show. She quit:
“I will not be used as a tool for their purposes. I am not a token, mammy, or little brown bobble head.”
But she had been a tool all along.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Rented Negro
- MSNBC
- Fox News
- Beyonce: Formation
- The 2016 election for US president
- Donald Trump
- Ted Cruz
- cisgender
- Sean Bell
- Mammy stereotype
- 21 ways the US violates human rights
535
“But she had been a tool all along.”
Good Lord man, tell us how you really feel!
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I love MHP she is one of my heroes. I loved Nerdland I looked forward to watching MHP on Saturday and Sunday mornings with my breakfast in my pajamas it was one of my favorite things and MSNBC are some dirty mofos for taking small pleasure away from me. I knew it was too good to be true when black people and other people of color could have discourse about social issues about things that affect marginalized groups. It was what I used to learn things in tandem to Abagond’s blog and Brotha Wolf.
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I loved reading her book Sister Citizen and I have her other book Barbershops, Bibles, and BET, Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought in my Amazon cart.
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I do forgive her for that lame interview she did with Rachel Dozeal though. I needed her to tear that witch a new one instead she soft peddled and gave her the benefit of the doubt. I was too disappointed and disgusted because I wanted her to go after her. Lots of black folks were disappointed in that interview but I forgive her for that because we are all human and make mistakes.
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Yep. She was there to distract black folks from the Obama travesty. Now that Obama’s leaving the PTB don’t need her or Al or any of the other black Obama protectors. Seeya the next time we need to brainwash the black community.
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Disclaimer. I never even saw her show. But I can believe this:
“But she had been a tool all along.”
Great line. Her and a host of other black gatekeepers.
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“But she had been a tool all along.” – Abagond
Damn,… very true Sir! It’s just too darn unfortunate that when our people does quit slumbering, white folks in general have already did what they wanted to do before blacks realized what’s really going on. This confirms that sleeping isn’t always a good thing. Black folks, … get your own sh#t!
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MHP is a intelligent and articulate woman who fell for the illusion that education and smarts will maintain your position. Calvin Coolidge stated “the world is full of educated derelicts” there are plenty of black people smart as whips and even more whites. Her position was always expendable. Another thing is her weak grasp on the pulse of Black America via downplaying important issues or ignoring them or chasing ghosts. Essentially she was not really unique and in the immortal words of Woodson
“Even if Negroes do successfully imitate the whites, nothing new has thereby been accomplished. You simply have a larger number of persons doing what others have been doing. The unusual gifts of the race have not thereby been developed, and an unwilling world, therefore continues to wonder that the Negro is good for.”
And that my friends is why black folks who bring nothing new to the table are jettisoned.
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@Abagond…This post is dead on, Brother!
“But she had been a tool all along.”
Amen, and amen again! As nomad said above (Hey there, ‘mad!), she and a host of other Black gatekeepers were ALL tools — used and discarded by the Changling and the media machine that got his behind selected. Methinks there’ll be plenty more, “reaping what you’ve sown” as the clock ticks down to his exit.
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Hey, Deb! Are the chickens home yet? The roost looks kinda lonely.
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Yeah.. that last line line though….
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@Abagond
My goodness, Black propagandists have a short half life. I hope the shekels were worth it.
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@nomad
Incisive insight as ever!
Not that it took too much effort to distract a brainwashed people.
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@hmurchison
Good points! “Education and smarts” are only part of what it takes. A sense of service and courage are important too. In Miseducation of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson devoted a whole chapter to leaders motivated by service to the people, instead of being tools of the oppressor.
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Obama was a team player… with a rather peculiar lineage.
He’s an “Insider” in the sense that he’s an Initiate.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/07/obama-cousins-senate-family-tree
http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-related-to-many-u-s-presidents-including-bush
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@King
Quite a list of Obama’s lineage. I wonder if he’s related to any black people.
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Seriously though, his family is the CIA. He was groomed from birth to be a Manchurian candidate. Hell, they might even have cloned that sucker from some test tube.
“Barack Obama not only worked for a CIA front business, but both his mother and grandparents appear to have had intelligence ties.”
http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-cia-has-influenced-presidency.html
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@nomad
With his lineage, it’s no wonder he blows Black people off with such ease. Black folk are not family to him.
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Harris-Perry was born to a white mother and black father. She was born in Seattle but grew up in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
white MOTHER
black father (did he stick around it IS a good question) do black people claim white women so much all the time like this?
why?
a drop will do ya …? I wish she had no white in her then. its like rape. you all are rapists of strangers. (mentally) you claim white people as black… if I knew that id abort it… (and now many do they are seeing this)
youll get your wish you will be all black.
and the world will stop caring that you want us to notice you and say awww yay you did something great! we don’t have time for it.
youre not our children are you???(im starting to wonder) if you were id be nicer.. but I cannot claim the ill behaviours
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MHP’s show was both insightful and topical. POC don’t speak with one voice but we tend to unify around major issues. I welcomed her slant on the issues that otherwise wouldn’t even be a part of any ongoing MSM coverage.
President Obama needed “SOME” support from an MSM program for his message to be heard above the racism that is shouted from the overwhelming majority of MSM outlets. I enjoyed MHP’s show because her guests (Boomers, Next Gen, etc) were folks I may have never otherwise been afforded an “opportunity” to hear from on 99.999% of the other MSM news programs.
POC need a national MSM platform to discuss issues relevant to our communities. Now what..?? Even MHP’s harshest critics agreed that she responded to constructive critique and made tangible improvements to her program.
Now, I would ask those who kick sand in her face: “Where do you go NOW to have the issues relevant to your community discussed?
Having a platform with a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” host, such as MHP, did not exclude the “reality” of her program covering, in detail, topics or having guests who have more strident/passionate/relevant opinions.
MHP “always” had a good mix of opinions on her show. The loss of her program, especially during THIS election season, means a source of community oriented issue-specific discussions is GONE.
Dancing on her grave and throwing shade on her contributions is truly short-sighted and counter-productive.
With regard to President Obama, and MHP…….
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone”
Lyrics by Joni Mitchell
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Re: Afrofem’s
Are his wife, his in-laws, and his kids family?
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Some quotes I cut from the post for length:
Ishmael Reed in 2010: “As an intellectual, she has more depth than all of the white mainstream and white progressive media’s selected ‘leaders of black intellection,’ among whom are post-modernist preachers who can spew rhetoric faster than the speed of light.”
Glen Ford at the Black Agenda Report in 2011: “Melissa Harris-Perry is one of the saddest examples of how the advent of a Black president has distorted the thinking of some of the most promising African American minds.”
Cornel West in 2012: “There’s not a lot of academic stuff with her, just a lot of twittering.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2014: “America’s most foremost public intellectual.”
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I’ve never liked this woman and after the Dolezal interview my hate magnified.
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I feel this is a sh!tty post and reading the comments p!ss me off this is just an unfair critique of a smart and accomplished woman.
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@Black Sci-Fi
I disagree. She DID have a range of well-informed Black and Latino opinion that you rarely hear on cable news, which is good, of course, yet she stuck to the strange MSNBC format of using guest panels that were echo chambers. In the main her guests coloured within the Democratic party lines. She and the show fell into the trap that Woodson warned about.
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@ jefe
Who knows? Will he throw his kids under the bus like he did Rev. Jeremiah Wright after their first on campus BLM protest?
Will he disavow his in-laws concerns if one of them is shot by the Chicago police like he has done with countless other African Americans?
Will he toss his lovely wife overboard when she is no longer politically useful?
(maybe not, she knows where all the bodies are buried)
Who knows how he will treat those dark-skinned relations when they no longer serve his ambitions? Who knows?
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@ Mary
At first I loved #Nerdland. It was like a dream come true. Just like when Obama became president. But then I started to notice that she blindly stuck to the Democratic Party line. Tons of Democrats, Black Democrats among them, were not happy with some of the things Obama was doing or failing to do. But instead of functioning as a critical intelligence, like you would expect from a professor, she functioned more like a party loyalist.
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“POC need a national MSM platform to discuss issues relevant to our communities.”
.
Then we’d better figure out how to buy our own stations and form our own networks!
MSM platforms are the most corrupted social-conditioning media in existence.
It’s like watching THE FIVE RULES OF RACIAL STANDING – in full effect!
Might as well watch – if it’s possible, other tools:
Walter Williams
Don Lemon
Larry Elder
Clarence Thomas (LOL…)
Thomas Sowell
Jesse Lee Peterson
Ken Hamblin
But then, there’s always two sides to any argument… if the other side is permitted to live.
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MSNBC is White-owned. She was building on sand.
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@nomad…“Are the chickens home yet? The roost looks kinda lonely.”
Man, here’s the thing — those Black folk who thought the Changeling was some kind of groundbreaking Messiah (instead of just the self-aggrandizing, insecure, two-faced, megalomaniacal tool he was) will never even realize that the idea that the evil (read, chickens) men create returns to their own door. It just seems lost on them — no matter how “intellectual” they are, or aren’t.
IMHO, if those Obamaphiles who thought they’d “made it” as a result of the selection, had been LEARNING AND PLANNING during those two terms — they could’ve flown the coop as his lame-duckness approached and pretty quickly built their OWN shit! Instead, they just hung on, ostensibly believing, “These white folk re-e-e-ally like me and realize what I bring to the table — I’ll have a job forever!” {smdh}
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Just reading Freedom Rider’s take. Cornel West really called it, didn’t he? About chickens coming home.
‘[Michael Eric Dyson] and Brother Sharpton and Sister Melissa and others, they have sold their souls for a mess of Obama pottage. And we invite them back to the black prophetic tradition after Obama leaves. But at the moment, they want insider access, and they want to tell those kind of lies. They want to turn their back to poor and working people. And it’s a sad thing to see them as apologists for the Obama administration in that way, given the kind of critical background that all of them have had at some point.’
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Melissa got her “negro wake up call”. That’s what happens when you’re in massa’s house. When he gets tired of you he throws you away like an old shoe. Come on black people! When will we learn?
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@ abagond,
I appreciate your blog. I read it every day. I wish you had a national prime time broadcast network show. “I” feel your contribution is just that worthy, necessary and elite. Hell, I even insist that my 2 granddaughters (ages 7 and 9) read your blog, every day.
That said, TMHPS is on “MSNBC”. She may share your desire to “speak truth to power” but she doesn’t “OWN” MSNBC and therefore has to contribute, or not, within the same confines of a white supremacist society that99.999% of all the “employed” POC do in the USA.
ERGO…….
Until we, POC, OWN and CONTROL our own network (Bill Cosby, et al tried to buy a then failing NBC in 1996 for $4B) and are able to broadcast 24/7 our truth using the MSM megaphone, the half-measure of “infotainment” (aka: cable-network THZ-esque news), like TMHPS, is all we have to work with.
It is my understanding that from ~2004 until 2013 the folks who make/sell “nuclear submarines”, GE, owned MSNBC/NBC/Universal and Comcast. Comcast bought the entertainment/news corporations in 2013 for ~$16B.
So, there’s that..
While MHP wasn’t the most strident (fire-spewing BLACK revolutionary) voice on MSM, she was visible, pro-black, relevant and topical. And, you’re experienced enough to understand the corporate/political aims of her Comcast corporate puppeteers. ATC, MHP being biased toward Democrats, considering the overwhelming pro republican, FOX-LIKE-For-RATINGS MSM megaphone, was both reasonable and necessary, IMHO.
Obama’s political ascension and his “OTC network ratings” required homage (tribute) in the form of (~some) visible diversity. The “quid-pro-quot” is perhaps more complicated to sort through within the confines of this forum.
I fully expect a right-wing KKK anchorman to join MSNBC after the current election cycle in homage to a ratings bonanza personified in the Trump/Bundy demographic.
Infotainment (FOX/TMZ) ain’t personal or really driven by political ideology. It’s all about DA-RATING$.
Hotep
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@Black Sci-Fi
Remember Snow White? Remember how she was put to sleep by the poisoned apple? Well, the apple itself was good. Like Melissa’s program. Good good good. …visible, pro-black, relevant and topical… The apple itself was nourishing. But that little bit of poison. That’s what put Snow White to sleep. That little bit of Obama apologetics. That is what put Snow White to sleep. That’s how limited hangouts work. I give you something good. But I also put you to sleep.
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@ nomad
As POC, our collective, focused voting power can move mountains. Our absence from the polls during the 2008 local and state mid-term elections denied Obama legislative relevance. And, to this day, continues to embolden and empower “racists” to “successfully” roll back our civil rights.
I don’t care to participate in the self-defeating and woefully misguided “Obama Blame Game”. To do so would only point out my ignorance of how our political system REALLY works.
We, as POC, sent him into battle in 2008 on the strength of our overwhelming and focused vote. We then “cut off his supply lines” (IE:ammunition) by staying home during the 2010 mid-term elections that saw the (loud and clear) MSM predicted “white backlash” elect racists from coast to coast. We were warned yet we sat on our hands while “Ol massa” was waiting in the wings and only too happy to slap the chains back on us once his minions seized power in the state capitals and the federal House of Representatives.
Checkmate..!!
During the months leading up to the 2010 mid-term elections, I clearly recall that MHP devoted show after show urging POC to sustain the 2008 progressive momentum by underscoring “fierce urgency of now” to vote in overwhelming numbers again in the 2010 mid-terms through her topics and guests. We, as POC, denied Obama relevance and allowed racists a majority voice in 2010 that had been smothered by our collective votes in 2008. Elections, much to the surprise of POC, are not a 1-an-done proposition.
We’ve got to “stay in the game to be in the game” and FULLY participate in elections, at all levels of government, despite the obstacles white folks throw at us to deny us our ultimate freedom. Obama is leaving the game and the lack of our support is allowing MSNBC to sweep out any vestiges (TMHPS, et al) of the progressive revolution in their “prime time” programming along with him.
WE DID THAT..!!
This ain’t about Beyonce’s “Formation”
That is only a symptom of a roll-back of our collective freedoms.
This ain’t about “un-elected” Cornell West getting airtime to denounce “PRESIDENT” Obama-Mandela and sell books that don’t devote a single page to underscore the REAL power of our voting, in every election.
This is about our failure to sustain our (King, Malcolm) revolution and the results that lead, in our internet-fueled MSM, to the sickening rise of “Instant Replay Videos” of our children being murdered on prime time by the MSM to boost ratings. Where’s the outrage sustained voting that can sweep out of office the very politicians that allow (encourage?) these “racist” crimes to persist?
So, now what?
Can we really afford to sit out the 2016 elections?
The racists are fully motivated..!!
Are we..??
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“We, as POC, sent him into battle in 2008 on the strength of our overwhelming and focused vote. ”
Are you kidding me? That’s mythology. Propaganda. A fairy tale. I imagine it’s the kind of yarn woven by our gatekeeping Ms Harris Perry.
The only people Obama fought for were Bankers, Corporations and Wall Street. Time to throw off that narrative.
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@ nomad
The eloquence of your individual “Declaration of Surrender” is sadly accompanied by our time honored tradition of spreading toxic levels of “crabs in a barrel” self-hatred.
POWER cedes NOTHING.
Our political system is rigged only to the extent that we allow it to be through voter apathy.
Political immaturity (Why should I vote? They’re all the same) since 1965 is nothing to be proud of.
Nor is embracing willful political ignorance by individuals who then spread apathy rather than or the values of focused political participation as “one step” towards true liberation.
“ARE YOU READY TO BE FREE” is the question only you can answer?
Hotep
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Abagond,
you’re such a Judas 🙂
So, what will you say when there are no black newscasters left on cable News – “oh well, we still got 1 left – Don Lemon!”
you do realize that many of the “gains” black people received are slowly being taken away, right?
This is what is happening to the “civil rights” that black people bled and died for back in the 60s and 70s
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Black Sci-Fi,
Wow, you really know how to spin the science fiction of an Obama ready to do battle with “racists”. So inviting a cop who roughed up a respected Harvard scholar for beers at the White House put racists on the run across the nation?
Such imagination! Now we should all run to the polls and make sure that Mrs. Clinton, with her record of support for mass incarceration of blacks, should get overwhelming black support, because Trump, her good friend is the next Hitler? Note how you blame Blacks as the sole culprits for the 2010 election results. What did Obama do to mobilize the votes that got him elected in 2008?
I leave you with two articles on the Trump-Clinton relationship, I’d love to read what you make of it.
(http://www.mintpressnews.com/donald-trump-donated-millions-to-clinton-foundation/209112/)
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-ahead-of-republicans-2016-launch/2015/08/05/e2b30bb8-3ae3-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html)
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What did the left do to ensure Obama had Congressional support to enact his legislative agenda after 2008? Not a damn thing. Instead of whining about Obama’s progressive credentials, they should have galvanized enough people to come out to vote in the 2010 and 2012 midterm elections. Things would be a lot different today had we had enough progressives in Congress pushing the president. Maybe the left should learn a thing or two from the tea party on organizing and getting your guy or gal into Congress.
Congress after 2010 have effectively stalled his legislative agenda. After 2012, it got worse. Obama is not perfect, but people are unfairly blaming him for the political climate we are in.
The Kocks Brothers spent billions of dollars in the last two election cycles funding right leaning candidates to take on the Democratic candidates. Some Democrats during the 2012 election were running away from Obama like he had a contagious virus. Guess what happened to them? They lost anyway.
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“Obama is not perfect, but people are unfairly blaming him for the political climate we are in.”
He was perfect when it came to pandering to rich whites who needed him to bail them out. In dealing with Blacks, no so much. It’s a good thing he didn’t have a Congress willing to work with him. He would have given the Republicans everything they asked for, as long as they were willing to ask nicely.
“Some Democrats during the 2012 election were running away from Obama like he had a contagious virus. Guess what happened to them? They lost anyway.”
Right wing Democrats that he pandered to. His main backers were the DLC, a fairly right wing group of Democrats. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council)
Obama did what every politician did to the Black community, take it for granted.
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So……someone else understands…
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@Black Sci-Fi
‘The eloquence of your individual “Declaration of Surrender” is sadly accompanied by our time honored tradition of spreading toxic levels of “crabs in a barrel” self-hatred. ‘
Back atcha. Gro jo answered you pretty good so I”ll just ditto that.
“you really know how to spin the science fiction of an Obama ready to do battle with “racists”.
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She supported the NWA film. She once said she listens to Lil Wayne. This is from a proud feminist. She’s not a bad on air media personality but at times, she’s can be dense..
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