We have never invested as much in public education, because we’ve always had a sort of private notion of children, your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of, ‘These are our children.’ So part of it is that we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility, and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.
-Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC Host April 2, 2013

When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say: ‘Your child belongs to us already…. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in this new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.
-Melissa Harris-Perry