Melissa Harris-Perry had a harrowing experience during her stay at a hotel for the Iowa caucus Monday. The MSNBC host was attending the caucus with students from her Wake Forest University politics class when she was approached by a white supremacist. In a blog post, she described what happened while she was waiting in her hotel lobby:
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I donโt know if he was there to kill me.
Monday night I was sitting in a hotel lobby in downtown Des Moines with my back to a wall of windows, my eyes fixed on the TV, my attention wholly focused on early caucus results. I didnโt notice until he was standing right next to me, much closer than is ordinary or comfortable. When he started he speaking it was like he was picking up in the middle of sentence, finishing a conversation we had begun earlier, but I couldnโt remember ever meeting him.
โ โฆ So what is it that you teach?โ
โI am a professor of political science.โ
โMy wife is a professor of communications.โ
โDoes she teach here in Iowa?โ
โWhat I want to know is how you got credentialed to be on MSNBC.โ
I am not sure if it is how he spat the word credentialed, or if it is how he took another half step toward me, or if it is how he didnโt respond to my question, but the hairs on my arm stood on end. I ignored it. Told myself everything was ok.
โWell. It is not exactly a credential โฆ โย I began.
โBut why you? Why would they pick you?โ
Now I know something is wrong. Now his voice is angry. Now a few other people have stopped talking and started staring. Now he is so close I can feel his breath. Before I can answer his unanswerable question of whyย theyย picked me, he begins to tell me whyย heย has picked me.
โI just want you to know why I am doing this.โ
Ohโthere is aย this. He is going to do aย this. To me. And he is going to tell me why.
I freeze. Not even meโthe girl in me. The one who was held down by an adult neighbor and as he raped her. The one who listened as he explained why he was doing this. She freezes.
I freeze. He speaks. And moves closer. Is there a knife under the coat? A gun? Worse? And I canโt hear all the words. But I catchย โNazi Germanyโย and I catchย โrise to power.โย
[ โฆ ]
Instead of sitting still as he tells me what he is going to do and why, I jump up. I move. I put spaceโa tableโbetween him and me. My friend jumps too. It is breathtaking how fearlesslyโalmost recklesslyโshe throws herself between he and I. Together we raise our voices and make a fuss. He turns. He runs out. He jumps in a car. He drives off. We try to explain to hotel security what has happened and how I receive hate mail and even death threats, how I have had people show up at my workplace, how this might be serious. They listen politely, but this is the Iowa caucus, and I am not a candidate, so they go back to their evening. And we go back to ours.
On Wednesday, Harris-Perry tweeted about how sheโs now feeling about the experience and thanked people for their well wishes:
https://twitter.com/MHarrisPerry/status/694858019620937728
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