Tyler Perry, the award-winning actor, filmmaker, and writer, promoted acceptance and healing during a speech at the 93rd Academy Awards.
Perry, 51, urged people to teach their children to “just refuse hate” and not to “hate anybody” on Sunday night during his acceptance speech for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
93RD ACADEMY AWARDS SEE HISTORIC WINS IN UNIQUE CEREMONY
"I refuse to hate someone because they are Mexican, or because they are black, or white, or LGBTQ," he said, adding, "I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope that we refuse hate.”
The actor also spoke about his mother, whom he said grew up during the Jim Crow era in the South. He credited his mother for his desire to help others.
Perry said he sees himself as “stand[ing] in the middle,” because “that’s where healing happens, that's where conversation happens. That's where change happens — it happens in the middle."
"So anyone who wants to meet me in the middle," he said, wrapping up his remarks, "to refuse hate, to refuse blanket judgment, and to help lift someone's feet off the ground, this is for you, too."
Perry's comments come amid heightened tension in the United States following the verdict in the Derek Chauvin verdict, the death of Daunte Wright at the hands of a police officer, the death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, who was also killed by police though she was wielding a knife at the time, and the death of Andrew Brown, 40, who was also and killed by police last Wednesday.
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Perry, in the past, has said that "we need more police," in response to the prominent "defund the police" mantra that gained steam following the death of George Floyd, who was murdered by Chauvin on May 25, 2020.
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