Tyler Perry had to go back and edit his birthday tribute to Barack Obama after social media users dragged him for erroneously referring to the 44th president as a descendant of slaves.
Perry and the former president are good friends. So when he wished him happy 62nd birthday on Instagram on Friday, Aug. 4, people were shocked that he forgot that Obama’s Black side was actually from the motherland and not from the United States.
“This photo was taken at my house. I bought these chairs from an auction because they belonged to Abraham Lincoln. We both sat in them and had a conversation,” he mused.
“I wondered when he freed the slaves could he have imagined that one day a descendant of those slaves would become president of the United States. Only in our America and with all of her flaws.. what a great country we live in and we must fight to keep our democracy,” he said before ending, “Happy Birthday to you President @barackobama.”
The backlash was immediate and prompted him to change “a descendant of those slaves” to “this man” in the caption.
One person applauded the actor for editing his post, “Tyler Perry did the right thing by deleting that hyper-misinformation tweet claiming Obama as a descendant of slavery. Lineage consciousness is critical.”
Another said, “Tyler knows better, that’s why he deleted the crap!”
One tweet in particular detailed why the post was so offensive to one group of Black Americans.
“Comedian and actor, Tyler Perry, sent an emotional birthday message to former President Barack Obama.. Perry fraudulently tweeted that Obama was a descendant of Black American chattel slaves.. The backlash was immediate and unapologetic by the real Black American Descendants of Slaves #ADOS,” one person tweeted.
The tweet continued, “Perry has now deleted the fraudulent tweet — but he did not offer an apology to the Descendants of American Chattel Slaves for his disrespect.. If only Tyler Perry regarded Descendants of American Chattel Slavery in the same regards as he hold the Jewish community — and the Holocaust — would there be an immediate apology for his disrespect… Meanwhile, Trick Baby is a 1972 Blaxploitation film that immediately captures the moment… #ReparationsNow.”
Another social media user claimed that the comment was intentional, fueled by a personal agenda.
“This wasn’t a mistake,” they wrote. “I mean, the fact that he went out his way to use ‘descendant of slaves’ terminology instead of the already co-opted ‘African American’ let’s you know his true disingenuous intentions.”
Still, others believed it was an honest mistake and encouraged him to “research a lil better before posting next time.”
While Obama was the first African-American president of the United States of America, his lineage cannot be connected to enslaved Africans. The biracial political figure has a white mother from Kansas and a Black father from Kenya, who came to the United States to attend Harvard University.
The former president does have a connection to the institution of American slavery. Former president Donald Trump was quick to point this fact out, posting an excerpt about Obama’s heritage on his social media platform Truth Social.
It read, “President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president — except Donald Trump — are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and — through his white mother’s side — Barack Obama.”
He boasted that his ancestors did not own Africans because they “came to America after slavery was abolished.”
Perry previously shared the same photo of him and Obama during Black History Month in 2015.
