From Hello Beautiful

The Harlem Shake has sparked more debates than whether or not Beyonce gave birth to Blue Ivy. This weekend, MSNBC host, Melissa-Harris Perry used an entire segment of her show to shame the creators of the new Harlem Shake. “I wasn’t going to say anything about the mislabeled, so-called dance craze, really I wasn’t…” But, she just had to. Even though Harris-Perry claims she’s not “hating,” her rant comes off like a angry spoken word performance.

See what else Dr. Harris-Perry had to say and watch her segment where she brings out real Harlem Shakers on HelloBeautiful.com.

Source: WENN/AP

As African Americans, it’s important that we receive news from people who look like us, and the Black women listed here not only share our experience in America but give it to us straight, no chaser. From their own personal triumphs, to their reputable knack for reporting, and even the creation of million dollar empires, the African American broadcast journalists here not only provide information we can trust, but have set career blueprints that those who come after them can follow with utmost certainty that they too can be successful at all costs. Check out the African American female journalists we salute.

Source: WENN

Cornel West is no stranger to harsh language, and harsh is the most appropriate word to describe the words he had for Barack Obama and several black political pundits on a recent episode of Democracy Now. Dr. West was asked to weigh in on the issue of poverty in America, a topic that was oft-neglected during this election, in lieu of the astronomical amount of money that was spent on campaigning this year — $6 billion.

Not one to mince words, Dr. West went straight for the jugular when host Amy Goodman asked him how he feels about the spending that took place this election season.

“I think that it’s morally obscene and spiritually profane to send $6 billion on an election, $2 billion on a presidential election, and not have any serious discussion—poverty, trade unions being pushed against the wall dealing with stagnating and declining wages when profits are still up and the 1 percent are doing very well, no talk about drones dropping bombs on innocent people,” Dr. West said. “So we end up with such a narrow, truncated political discourse, as the major problems—ecological catastrophe, climate change, global warming. So it’s very sad. I mean, I’m glad there was not a right-wing takeover, but we end up with a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in blackface, with Barack Obama, so that our struggle with regard to poverty intensifies.”

Tavis Smiley was interviewed alongside Dr. West and insinuated that political thought leaders like Melissa Harris-Perry, Al Sharpton, and Michael Eric Dyson, who have been vocally supportive of the President, need to push him to have a stronger stance on certain issues. Dr. West was nowhere near as PC, telling Goodman:

“I love Brother Mike Dyson… but we’re living in a society where everybody is up for sale. Everything is up for sale. And he 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 when it comes to a statement Dyson made in which he called the President progressive, Dr. West said this:

“In the president’s forward motion in the second term to establish a legacy—and I don’t think that being president ought to be about a legacy; it ought to be about advancing the best for the American people. But in this conversation about his legacy, I want to see what risk he’s going to take. Is he going to put himself on the line for poor people? Is he going have an honest conversation about drones? As Doc said earlier, you know, is he ever going to say the word prison—the phrase, “prison-industrial complex”? Reagan wouldn’t say “AIDS.” Bush wouldn’t say “climate change.” Will Obama say “prison-industrial complex”? I mean, I want to know where the risk is that equates to being the most progressive president ever. That’s the—I don’t get that.”

Well, say it like you mean it.

Check out the full interview here. What do you think about what Cornel West had to say?

Image via Twitter

Author, professor and MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry joined a panel on Saturday for The New Yorker Festival’s discussion of “The Fifty-one Percent,” the effort to win the female vote. Touching on topics including women’s health, “the war on women,” and the speeches delivered by First Lady Michelle Obama and Ann Romney, the conversation veered into economic territory when it turned to healthcare and discrimination.

Also on the panel: Kelly Ann Conway, an author and GOP pollster who worked for Newt Gingrich’s unsuccessful campaign for president; Margaret Hoover, an author and former adviser George W. Bush; and Cecile Richardson, the president of Planned Parenthood and former staffer to Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The panel was moderated by The New Yorker‘s executive editor Dorothy Wickenden.

Let’s start by pointing out that Kelly Ann Conway spent the entire time sighing at just about everything that came out of Cecile Richardson’s mouth, and made little comments under her breath when she disagreed with something one of the other panelists said. This isn’t to say that she doesn’t know her stuff, or that she didn’t make some perfectly fine comments. But it didn’t make her likeable at all. It was downright rude and frustrating for the audience to watch her time and time again dismiss her fellow panelists. Not cool Kelly Ann Conway.

But moving on. Most of the discussion revolved about women’s health and the role it’s been playing in politics over recent months. According to Conway, this idea of “women’s issues” is wrongheaded (“You don’t hear people talking about ‘men’s issues.’”) and the focus on women’s health issues, like birth control coverage, myopic. She said that, in her experience, there are other issues of greater importance to female voters.

“There is no issue more central… than the ability to control your own fertility,” said Harris-Perry. “You can’t separate economic and health care issues.” Both she and Richardson emphasized the significance of birth control to career, relationship and other life decisions. In this, we would have to agree.

The topic of money and lifestyle also came up when an audience member took to the microphone with her assertion that, as a lesbian, she isn’t a social issue; that the system is discriminatory in a number of ways, among them in an economic way. Because she can’t marry her partner in many places across the U.S., she can’t take advantage of the financial benefits that a marriage affords, which lowers her economic stability.

To this, Harris-Perry added a compelling argument: that without real change, discrimination will continue because “people are willing to pay a premium to discriminate.” For example, people will pay more money to stay away from those they consider unsavory. And bus companies during the civil rights movement went bankrupt to keep from integrating.

In other words, if someone doesn’t want you around, they’ll do everything in their power to keep you away.

On a much more upbeat note, there was the belief across the entire panel that, if President Obama is re-elected, there will be a number of women and men, including people of color, ready to run in 2016. We hope both of those things happen.

Feel free to take to the comments with your thoughts about women’s health as a political issue. Is it something you’ll be taking into consideration when you go to the ballot box in November?

Source:EurWeb

From Eurweb

While it’s not exactly like Katrina in sheer force and damage, for the folks in Louisiana Hurricane Issac is no punk, either. Just ask MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry. Yesterday she tweeted that her new home had been destroyed by the storm.Harris-Perry and her husband closed on the purchase of what one could only be described as a “fixer-upper” (the house lacked all four walls) just last month. She excitedly announced that she and her family planned to restore the New Orleans property that was destroyed and abandoned during Katrina.On her Sunday MSNBC show, the Tulane University professor acknowledged the anniversary of Katrina by giving viewers a tour of what she called her “extreme home makeover.”

Harris-Perry described the ripped-apart home as a safety concern and the “site of crime” in the neighborhood.“To try to address that, we have purchased this house with the goal of completely renovating it, bringing it back to life, and contributing ultimately to the safety and security of this neighborhood,” she said. “For me, this house is representative of New Orleans and what we are facing since [Katrina].” She later called the property “just a physical thing” but “also a symbol of hope.”

Read more at Eurweb

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If you haven’t had a chance to check out Melissa Harris Perry’s weekend show on MSNBC you really should because she’s putting the issues of the black community, and black women in particular, on the map in a major way.

This Sunday, the Princeton professor invited actress Nicole Ari Parker, Curly Nikki blogger Nikki Walton, University of Pennsylvania professor Anthea Butler, and cultural critic Joan Morgan to have a candid discussion about the natural hair boom, which has sent relaxer sales on the decline since 2007. The women also talked about why black hair in general is a $185 billion business and I love that Nicole Ari Parker laid the truth behind that figure right out on the line.

“What’s so interesting about that,” she said, is “with all of the politics and all the emotional health issues, and us loving ourselves, we’re vain. We want to look good.

“Nobody is talking about that. We even judge each other. We were just talking about Solange being upset on twitter because there is still this thing about getting your hair done—whether it’s an afro, twists, braids, relaxers—everyone wants their hair done, so she embraces just get up and go, and she’s beautiful.”

Beyond that understandable economic growth, the women also delve into the other economic side of black hair and the radical idea of people robbing hair stores to steal hair that actually came from someone else’s head to put on another person’s and what kind of mentality and, frankly, addiction and issues of acceptance spark that sort of behavior.

It was a really interesting two-part discussion that you can see unfold in the clips below. Check out the dialogue and Nicole Ari Parker’s comments on the reactions she received from men once she went natural and how she actually got more attention when she let the perms go (not that she’s not already happily taken).

What do you think about the segment> Have any of you had a similar experience?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Professor Melissa Harris-Perry has gone from stand-in on MSNBC—often filling in for Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell— to full-time weekend anchor, thanks to her thoughtful analysis and provocative commentary.

The network made the announcement today, stating professor Harris-Perry’s newscasts will run every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 12Noon EST starting February 4.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity. All I’ve ever wanted to be is a teacher,” she says. “Phil Griffin and MSNBC are giving me the chance to have a much bigger classroom. I’m particularly excited to join the growing weekend lineup where we have a chance to take a longer and broader view of the week’s political news.”

Melissa Harris-Perry will continue to teach as a a professor of Political Science at Tulane University, and she will also continue to write her Sister Citizen column for The Nation magazine. It’s great to see more women of color with a voice in the media.

Will you watch professor Harris-Perry on MSNBC’s weekend newscast?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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It would be nice to think that we’ve gotten away from mammy and welfare queen imagery, but even a shallow look at black women’s portrayal in the media would tell you otherwise. The angry black woman is a stereotype most of us hate but some can’t break free of, and the strong black women archetype, or independent woman as we call it today, is a label we’ve come to embrace in many ways.

In her new book, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes and Black Women in America, columnist and Tulane University Political Science Professor Melissa Harris-Perry examines how black women are perceived in America and how these stereotypes affect the way we view ourselves.

The book’s main title is a nod to Audre Lorde​’s “Sister Outsider,” a collection of essays focusing on race, gender, sexual identity, and social class. The subtitle, “For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn’t Enough,” refers to Ntozake Shange’s inspirational choreopoem, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”

“Fictive kinship” is one part of black women’s problem in terms of cultural and self-perception, Harris-Perry says. “The term fictive kinship refers to connections between members of a group who are unrelated by blood or marriage, but who nonetheless share reciprocal social or economic relationships. In this book, I draw on the deep tradition of black fictive kinship when I refer to black women as sisters. This imagined community of familial ties underscores a voluntary sense of shared identity.”

When Reverend Al Sharpton began his nightly news show on MSNBC, many folks complained. Why wasn’t a traditional journalist or pundit selected to provide a black voice among the throngs of white folks who provide the majority of the political commentary on the 24-hour-news channels? Even if we aren’t seeing them every evening, there are a number of brilliant black people using new and traditional media to speak truth to political power, rather than just trying to stir the spot to hear themselves talk. Here’s just a few of our faves who you might want to hear out: