Esteemed actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry weighed in on thoughts about former President Donald J. Trump at the Thursday night Atlanta Rally.
In a serious and direct tone, Perry criticized Trump’s leadership, emphasizing the importance of moving forward with Harris as a key figure in shaping the nation’s future.
In his speech, he recounted how he once booked a room in the Trump Hotel since the businessman seemed so revered in rap lyrics. “I wanted to feel that specialness,” Perry said. But, he said, he later did his research on the man and realized the kind of person Trump really is.
“I found out about a discrimination lawsuit against him and his father because they didn’t want people like me in their building. I found out about him taking a full-page ad out on young black men in the New York Times. I found out about the birther lie,” Perry said. “There are undertones there and there are echoes there that we all had to pay attention to.”
Perry pointed out that because of Trump’s upbringing, he fails to understand the struggles of the lower and working class.
“I didn’t have a father who gave me millions of dollars to start a business. Did you? [audience replies ‘no’] Didn’t think so,” Perry stated.
“If you are like me, I worked my ass off to buy my first house, to build my business and take care of my family,” Perry said with conviction. “That is the American dream”
Perry also invoked a deep analogy on the stage comparing Harris and Trump’s visions of America to a “quilt” versus a “sheet.”
“I’m closing here, I just want to talk about that quilt that I used to wrap up in my car, the quilt that my grandmother gave me,” said Perry. “That quilt was a tapestry of beautiful pieces, but I completely ignored it, I didn’t think it was worth anything, because she had made it from all of these stitches and gave it to me as a gift. And I was walking past this antique store years later, and I saw one in the window, and I go, ‘Wow, that’s a beautiful quilt, it reminds me of my grandmother.’ So I walk in, I talk to the lady, and she started explaining to me that each patch in that quilt was worth this, and meant this, because of the woman who made it.”
Other public figures at the Atlanta rally included Georgia-born filmmaker Spike Lee, singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen and actress Julia Roberts.