Tyler Perry is "exhausted" by racism.
The 50-year-old actor, writer, and director has admitted he is tired of the "hate and division" currently present across the world, and says following the recent death of unarmed black man George Floyd – who was killed when a police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes – and the Black Lives Matter protests that have followed, he can’t stand seeing similar scenes play out "with nothing changing".
In an essay penned for People magazine, he wrote: "When I was asked to write this essay, I initially said no, and that is so strange for me because I’m a man of faith, and I believe greatly in hope. It was simply because I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted from all the hate and the division, the vitriol that I see online from one to another. I’m exhausted from seeing these kinds of senseless murders play out over and over again with nothing changing in our society."
Tyler spoke about the discrimination he has felt at the hands of police, including a time in which officers seemingly accused him of stealing his own car.
He added: "From as far back as I can remember, growing up in New Orleans, which in the ’70s and ’80s had one of the most corrupt police departments in the country, it brought back memories of walking to high school being stopped and frisked or later walking to work in the French Quarter and being made to lie facedown on the ground while they searched me for no reason at all.
"Or all the times I had to keep my hands on the hood of a hot police car in the middle of the Louisiana heat, almost burning them, while I was searched simply because I was black in a white neighbourhood.
"It brought back the pain of 2012 when I was leaving my studio preparing for a visit from the sitting President at the time, Barack Obama, when I was pulled over by two white officers in a situation that quickly could have gotten out of hand. I could have been a hashtag simply because I was driving a nice car."
And the ‘A Madea Family Funeral’ star says he’s dreading having to explain racism to his five-year-old son, as he knows the conversation will be "heartbreaking".
He wrote: "I know that as his father, a black man in America, it is my duty to prepare him for the harsh reality that awaits him outside of the watchful eyes of his loving parents. It will be a hard, heartbreaking conversation, but one that I must have and will have soon.
"I will explain to him that because we are only 12 to 14 per cent of the population, this fight will continue to be a long and arduous one, but I will tell him with pride to never give up. I will tell him that progress is made in small steps, and even if you get exhausted to fight on, because there are always signs of daybreak before the morning comes … It is my hope that we continue these hard conversations out of respective corners to talk to each other but most of all to hear each other so that this mourning in America will give way to morning in America."