When I was a kid growing up in Atlanta we used to slip under the fence at Fort McPherson and explore until the Army MPs rounded us up and took us home. That sprawling former military location is now base for movie mogul Tyler Perry.
I don’t know him but I have friends who do and they have glowing reviews of him as a human being.
A billionaire now, he was once homeless living in a car with one pair of shoes. He never forgot what that was like. And on Oscar night 2021 he shared a part of it in what would be a great movie. The man has class. And heart. And passion.
Perry recalled meeting a homeless woman who needed shoes and told him she was afraid he would hate her:
“In that moment I recall her saying to me ‘I thought you would hate me for asking’ but how could I hate you when I used to be you? How could I hate you when I had a mother who grew up in the Jim Crow South in Louisiana—rural Louisiana—right across the border from Mississippi, who at nine or 10 years old was grieving the death of that.
“As she got a little bit older she was grieving the deaths of the civil rights boys and the little girls who were in the bombing in Alabama. She grieved all these years.
“And I remember being a little boy and coming home and she was at home and I was like ‘what are you doing home you’re supposed to be at work?’ and she was in tears that day and she said there was a bomb threat. She couldn’t believe someone wanted to blow up this place where she worked, where she took care of all these toddlers. It was the Jewish community center.
“My mother taught me to refuse hate. She taught me to refuse blanket judgment. And in this time and with all of the internet and social media and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way—the 24-hour news cycle—it is my hope that all of us will teach our kids—and not only to remember—just refuse hate. Don’t hate anybody.
“I refuse to hate someone because they’re Mexican or because they are Black or white, or LGBTQ. I refuse to hate someone because they’re a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope that we would refuse hate.”
Perry was presented a humanitarian award Sunday night. Much deserved.
“I want to take this Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and dedicate it 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 where 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 judgment and to help lift someone’s feet off the ground, this one is for you, too. God bless you and thank you Academy, I appreciate it.”
And speaking as someone who never had more than one pair of shoes at a time until after college whose mother preached love and respect for everybody, I appreciate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its choice to honor Perry and for his message of hope and love.
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