Welcome to Hello Somebody, a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and I Heart Media.

Before we begin, I want to give a special shout out to my team.

Thank you, Sim, Tiffany, Sam, and the team over at Good Juju Studios, Erica, England, Pepper Chambers, the Hot One, and my social media team. Hello, hello somebody family.

Today we have Professor Melissa Harris-Perry joining us. She is the Maya Angelou

presidential chair in the Department of Politics and International Affairs, the Department of

Women and Gender Studies, and the program in Environment and and sustainability at Wake Forest University.

There she teaches courses on American politics at the intersections of race, place, and gender.

Some of you may remember she was the host of her own show, the Melissa Harris Perry show on MSNBC.

This is how we met and we have been sister girlfriends ever since.

Oh my God, I am so excited that all of you are on this journey with us.

Come on.

Let's go in and talk with the professor.

So how have you been?

Good, great, you know, blessed and highly favorite in this moment.

Like, we got to a point in early April where James and I were both vaccinated.

Both of our dads and moms were vaccinated and like fully vaccinated.

And James's aunt who has a fairly severe lung condition and my sister who has one.

And we were staying there looking at each other.

And again, it had been, it was like March or maybe early April. And I said, I looking at each other. And again, and then it was like

March or maybe early April. And I said, I can't believe we made it. Like, like, made it with, as we

like to say, with all the olds. Like all the olds made it all the way through this. Because a year ago,

I mean, we were like, we would take walks together and be like, okay, so if you get

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