N&R editorial page editor Allen Johnson says Wake Forest University law professor Melissa Harris-Perry’s dismissal from MSNBC “could be a blessing.”
I agree it’s a blessing, but certainly not for the same reason. Johnson writes:
Of course, Harris-Perry remains a welcome addition to the Triad, as Presidential Chair Professor of Politics and International Affairs. (Her husband James, a Greensboro native, keynoted the recent Preservation Greensboro’s annual dinner and heads the Winston-Salem Urban League.)
The good news is that, in the programming-hungry cable news universe, there should be a better place for her … somewhere.
TV One? BET? HBO? (Why not a very bright and feisty African American woman to break into the boys club of Bill Maher and John Oliver?)
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in The Atlantic in 2014: “Melissa Harris-Perry makes America smarter. And she does so in a way that we have not seen before and will not soon see again.”
Apparently both Johnson and Ta-Nehisi Coates legitimately believe what they write. Perhaps they haven’t noted Harris-Perry’s Top 10 rants. My favorite? “Hard worker” is a racist characterization.
