Melissa Harris-Perry to address gender/race issues, student tickets available starting Feb. 16

Wake Forest University professor and MSNBC television host Melissa Harris-Perry will discuss “Mommy, Mammy and the Maid: Race, Class and Women’s Political Power” for UNC Charlotte’s ninth annual Women’s and Gender Studies Speaker Series at 8 p.m., Wednesday, April 1, in the Student Union, Room 340.

The event is co-sponsored by the Women’s & Gender Studies program and the Campus Activities Board.

“We are delighted to bring Melissa Harris-Perry to the campus to talk about issues of race and gender that continue to challenge the world we live in,” said Nancy A. Gutierrez, dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. “Her experience and insight will make the evening an inspiring as well as educational occasion, and l look forward to a lively interchange of ideas.”

A book signing will be held at 6 p.m., prior to the speech, in the Student Union Rotunda.

Tickets for UNC Charlotte students are free with a valid ID (limit one ticket per ID) and are available beginning at 8 a.m. Monday, Feb. 16. Faculty and staff tickets are $10, and tickets for the public are $15; they go on sale at 8 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 19. All tickets are for general admission; no seats will be reserved. For tickets, visit the University Arena Ticket Office, call 704-687-4949, or purchase online at www.ticketreturn.com.

Harris-Perry is the host of MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” show and a presidential chair and professor of politics and international affairs at her alma mater, Wake Forest University.

In her well–received book “Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes and Black Women in America,” Harris-Perry asserts that persistent harmful stereotypes – invisible to many but painfully familiar to black women – profoundly shape black women’s politics, making it difficult for them to assert their rights in the political arena.