AT2W

Al Sharpton Honors Tyler Perry with Award and Calls His Haters “Proper Negroes”

Excuse me, Mr. Sharpton but not everyone likes Tyler Perry and what he stands for as a pseudo-black role model. Even I had to learn that Tyler Perry is in this for himself and found a way to persuade blacks to play and pay into his work. I know- I was one of them. Read my take at the end.

Read report below:

Al Sharpton honored Tyler Perry at his National Action Network event called Black detractors “proper negroes”. He went on to say:

“This man never apologized for who we were…The ultimate pride is where you don’t have to bend and adjust for others to accept you. … He didn’t go mainstream, he brought mainstream to us.”

Tyler Perry also went in on the ‘haters’ as well by stating this with his award in hand:

“When you start out and you’re doing things and you’re trying to do the right things, and you find these attacks happening…So to have someone like you (Al Sharpton) who has done all that you have done … and have inspired and encouraged and fought for so many people, to stand here and to give me this award, this is really, really awesome…”

“I stayed with who we are, and what I wish I could get us to understand as a people is that instead of getting your education and running from us, you need to ground and root yourself in who we are. Every other culture in this country knows the value of us as black people but we don’t know it ourselves,”

“I have the ear of the people, and I would be a fool to walk away from the gift that God has given me because somebody out there, a few people out there, have a problem with it.”

Of course, Tyler Perry donated $200,000 to Sharpton’s organization.

Ms. Alexandryte’s Take: I used to be so into Tyler Perry. I truly loved how he was dealing with black issues and his defense for the woman- the black woman. When I was in a bad place years ago, I would get his emails and he encouraged me and I was able to weather that storm better with the help of his words. I thought he was good for black people and Christians but until I saw the portrayal of him on Boondocks, I was rudely awakened. It wasn’t the outlandish attempts to discredit Perry in the cartoon episode that did it for me. It was some of what it showed I had to admit bothered me while watching some of his movies and plays. I finally realized Tyler Perry was in this for himself and he was not a great portrayal of a child of God. I finally saw the forest for the trees when he’d put on display these gorgeous men in his work and that it was for his pleasure alone. I realized that for someone to say “Hollywood won’t let me say the word ‘Jesus’ and vow to never compromise, he was all too willing to compromise other values that turned his work into an image of Hollywood. So, I am only confessing that I was once a Tyler Perry fan because my beliefs at the time were clouded until God revealed the truth to me.

What I pray for is that since he has such a presence and audience in the black community that he will do more things than a man in a dress and flashing men in the camera. He could do better things and be a better influence if he truly followed the heart of God and not just what he thinks is ‘churchy and funny.’