Tyler Perry’s Oscar speech goes viral, ‘My mother taught me to refuse hate’

Tyler Perry, the director who won the humanitarian honor at the Academy Awards, spoke of unity during his acceptance speech Sunday and said his mother taught him as a boy to refuse hate and refuse to succumb to “blanket judgments.”

"And in this time, with all of the internet and social media and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way, the 24-hour new cycle…it is my hope that all of us would teach our kids, and I want to remember: just refuse hate. Don’t hate anybody." His message comes at a trying time in the country. Last week, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd, and protests have erupted over two fatal police shootings in Columbus, Ohio, and Brooklyn Center, Minn. Perry said he refuses to hate someone "because they are Mexican or because they are Black or White, or LBGTQ."