Melissa Harris-Perry, host of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show recently tweeted a picture of her newborn daughter along with her loose natural hair.
Harris-Perry is known for rocking her signature individual braids on her show and lauds that her maternity leave will allow her to relax…the natural way of course!
We love her hair! What are your thoughts ladies?
27 Responses
Come on ladies! Stop focusing on the hair! This is a beautiful black educated woman who just had a baby. Who cares if iris gets biologically or not. Black women stop picking apart every little thing and let’s get ourselves together please!
Melissa, I love your show. I am also glad you changed your hairstyle the first twist/braids look too heavy for your hair and I was afraid the whole time that they would have a negative effect on your hair health. The smaller ones suit your face better.Enjoy your new baby. Peace and love to you and yours.
Lovely! Her natural hair is great, i wonder why they don’t allow her to wear it on TV. Cute baby too
I love this brilliant and beautiful black woman…that is all!
those arent braids. those are twists
i have a question, because i’ve noticed this about newsanchors in general. are they not allowed to change their hair up? or at all? because every news anchor i can think of that i’ve ever noticed has always kept the exact same hairstyle. so if she had straight blonde hair, she keeps that to the end. if she had curly ringlets, she keeps that- like Sage Steel on ESPN i think. if she had braid extensions she keeps that, like Jamil (Jameel?) on ESPN. I forgot her last name. is it like taboo for them to change it up?
I don’t know about it being taboo or not but Jemele Hill on ESPN does change her hair style often, though for the most part the change is still some sort of braided style.
yeah that’s true. she keeps the braids but will pin them up in various updos
I like MHP but her logic doesn’t make sense. It’s fine if she chooses to wear extensions but it’s erroneous if she tries to make that about the demands of consistency on TV. All she’d have to do is twist her own short hair, and keep twisting it. It would just get longer, little by little, over time…what, other than her own personal choice, would prevent her from doing that? Am I missing something?
it depends on her hair, though. if her hair’s like mine, that would not work, because my hair frizzes up very easily and i’d be guaranteed to have to redo those twists at least twice a week, which would kill my hair over time because the extra manipulation would be overkill. i think media personalities have to subject their hair to more abuse than your average woman necessarily “has” to to look presentable enough for the camera, because you know how people criticize. while we here on the natural board can deal with frizz, the difference is we’re not in the public eye, so we get much more of a pass. i think that’s why most of them wear extensions, or at least the black ones. but i think a lot of the white ones do as well for this same reason.
What she probably didn’t want to say is that her producers/managing editors/or news directors may not accept natural hair as “professional”. The larger stations have consultants telling them which colors to wear, how to accessorize, what makeup looks best, etc. I worked at a station that required all the reporters wear bobs, and no one could wear glasses on air. It gets very specific.
I like it! The braids are probably good protection under all those hot studio lights.
Congratulations MHP! You are most certainly NOT your hair! 🙂
I love her show, She is informative and wish lots of great things for her and her family.
holding her baby! you can tell she’s to the moon with joy!!
I love it, thanks ^_^
She can’t wear her loose natural hair without extentions because she’s on tv? I dont get it…
I can only guess they want her to look more “ethnic” maybe. She looks radiant and happy. I wish her the best.
She actually addressed this before. She said that since she started the show with braids, she wanted to continue wearing braids for her show in order to remain consistent. You know the white folks who watch the show probably can’t handle the fact that black women can go from braids, to curls and kinks, to bone straight hair in one month.
Melissa began wearing braid extensions because of health issues. She addressed in a Curly Nikki interview:
http://www.curlynikki.com/2012/03/msnbcs-melissa-harris-perry-on-her.html?m=1
I’m confused, she had a hysterectomy in 09 and is on maternity leave in 2014?
She and her husband used a surrogate. She is on maternity leave to care for and bond with her baby – not to recover physically.
She just adopted the baby they refer to it as maternity leave but it is actually under the Family Medical Leave Act which entitles you to the same benefits as a mom who just given birth. 🙂
Novella,
Can I ask where you got the information that she adopted the child? I just read a very detailed post on MSMNB’s website (written by MHP) that says that the child is biologically theirs although they used a surrogate. Her hysterectomy was only partial.
Also, you’re right about the FMLA, but it also covers maternity leave (as well as leave for serious illness).
Thanks Dolores for the info!
Yeah, that tweet stayed with me also. But I can see how getting out the braids would be more liberating.
I’ve read/ heard from multiple people in media that once you start with a look you kind of have to stick with it. Think about Anne Curry or Soledad O’Brien…. same hairstyle for yearssssss lol