Filmmaker and producer Tyler Perry urged national unity as he accepted a special Oscar on Sunday, using his speech to encourage people to “meet me in the middle” and “refuse hate.”
The Madea actor was the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his work in the community and his efforts to help those in the entertainment industry during the coronavirus pandemic.
While some of Sunday’s winners made overtly political comments, Tyler Perry appeared to reject partisanship by taking a centrist position.
“I refuse to hate someone because they are Mexican or because they are black or white or LBGTQ [sic]. I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian,” he said.
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Perry dedicated his Oscar to “anyone who wants to stand in the middle, no matter what’s around the walls, stand in the middle because that’s where healing happens, that’s wear conversation happens, that’s where change happens. It happens in the middle.”
“So anyone who wants to meet me in the middle, to refuse hate, to refuse blanket judgement, and to help lift someone’s feet off the ground, this one is for you too,” he said.
As Breitbart News reported, Perry recently called for the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden to investigate Georgia’s new voter integrity law, calling it a form of “voter suppression” and a throwback to the “Jim Crow era.”
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