Melissa Harris-Perry, the Tulane University professor and MSNBC host shocked many parents with her ad claiming children belong to the collective.
I played the ad and talked about it yesterday with Andrea Mrozek from the Institute for Marriage and Family. You can watch that below but also make sure you scroll through to see how Harris-Perry has doubled down.
Claiming she has taken plenty of heat for her views, which I do not doubt, Harris-Perry says she has no intention to back away from her statement or apologize.
One thing is for sure: I have no intention of apologizing for saying that our children, all of our children, are part of more than our households, they are part of our communities and deserve to have the care, attention, resources, respect and opportunities of those communities.
From there Harris-Perry goes on to describe what she meant by saying, “kids belong to whole communities” is that people volunteer. She describes how she learned this.
I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children.
I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys’ basketball teams in our town.
I learned it from my third-grade public school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after school so that I wouldn’t get bored and get in trouble.
If I thought for a minute that this is what Melissa Harris-Perry meant then I would own up to that and apologize to her right now. But I don’t.
Take a look at what this woman said.
“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.”
She is not saying communities come together and volunteer to build a community, she is saying children are collective property. Get past the notion that children are property first and then let’s deal with the collective.
One look at Harris-Perry’s academic work or her stances on several issues show this woman to be a staunch defender of the modern American leftist ideals.
Ms. Perry, you may not want to come in a scoop up your other people’s children. That is a straw man argument set up by your supporters. But you do want greater state control over children, that much is clear.
As I’d say to anyone advocating that, back off.
