Melissa Harris-Perry is taken seriously in some quarters, having her own weekend show on MSNBC and holding a professorship at Wake Forest University, even sporting a PhD from Duke. But she has a history of acting foolishly on air, as when she mocked Mitt Romney’s family picture for including his recently adopted black grandchild, only to tearfully apologize. Then there is this fashion statement:

Well, she’s done it again, claiming that arson and looting are “not violence.” Hat tip: Big Fur Hat, iOTW Report.

Obviously, Professor Harris-Perry has never known anyone who has poured his or her life into starting and keeping open a business, such as a beauty supply store or cell phone outlet. The endless hours and sacrifice of family life necessary to make a business work through thick and thin constitute the very essence of a person’s life, and the loss of a business to arsonists and looters constitute an attack on that person’s life. When he or she loses the business, part of that person’s life is lost, too.

But how would she know that? She would have had to talk to such people and listened sympathetically to their stories. She would have had to understand that meeting a payroll when sales are down, or shoplifters have overwhelmed the retail margin, means sacrificing other important things, selling off precious possessions so that employees can be paid, or working a second job on the graveyard shift to put food on the table when the business is failing.

I would wager a substantial amount of money that Harris-Perry considers herself a caring and compassionate woman. But progressives have a way of dehumanizing people with whom they disagree, and regarding people who actually seek to create and maintain a business as exploiters, and therefore subhuman.

She is Al Sharpton with a PhD.