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Longtime Hollywood Insider Ousted from Elite Group for Criticizing BLM in an Email

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A longtime member and former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been booted from the organization for rightly calling the Black Lives Matter movement out for the racist hate movement it is.

Phil Berk, a four-decade HFPA member who served as the group’s president for eight terms, apparently felt compelled to call out the BLM movement and one of its founders in an email this past weekend. In that email, which was obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Berk linked to an article calling out Black Lives Matter and its co-founder Patrisse Cullors.

Cullors, according to recent reporting, lives a life of luxury, owning property in mostly white Topanga Canyon — just a few miles west from Hollywood and Beverly Hills. She’s cashed in big on nationwide racial strife and opposing capitalism, but apparently doesn’t want to live around other black people.

In morally bankrupt Hollywood, the irony of a Marxist living near people who assumedly frequent the shops on Rodeo Drive is lost or written off. The duality of Cullors and her reported lifestyle wasn’t lost on Berk, though, who decided to point it out.

The 88-year-old native of South Africa angered Hollywood’s movers when he shared an article calling the movement currently attempting to upend American culture and take over TV for good a “racist hate movement” and referring to Cullors as a “self-proclaimed ‘trained Marxist.’”

After being scolded by others in the email chain for sharing such “deeply offensive” material, Berk replied he “only intended to illustrate the hypocricy [sic] that engulfs us I forwarded it as a point of information I had no hidden agenda I now regret having sent it.”

Early this week, at the request of NBC, which produces Golden Globes, Berk was forced out of the HFPA and labeled a racist on the way out the door. NBC, the HFPA and NBC production partner Dick Clark Productions all attacked the now-former HFPA member.

“Effective immediately, Phil Berk is no longer a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” the HFPA said in a statement Tuesday.

Dick Clark Productions owner MRC also unleashed on Berk for daring to go against Hollywood’s zero-tolerance policy toward independent thinking. In a public statement, the owner of the company named for late entertainment icon Dick Clark excoriated Berk.

Do you watch the Golden Globes and other awards shows?

“We stand in solidarity with our Black colleagues, artists, journalists and executives who have been hurt or overlooked by the HFPA. We are disgusted by the racist rhetoric disseminated by a member yesterday,” the company said.

“We were encouraged by the very strong statements the HFPA previously made around improving their organization around issues of racial reform and equity. The actions and statements of this member are inconsistent with the direction that the HFPA has publicly said it has embarked upon.”

NBC then issued its own predictable email, touting coming reforms to ensure the HFPA is less white.

“NBC strongly condemns Phil Berk’s actions and is calling for his immediate expulsion. While we continue to await the details of HFPA’s upcoming plan for reform, swift action on this front is an essential element for NBC to move forward with the HFPA and the Golden Globes,” the left-wing company stated.

The HFPA has been on a mission in recent months to virtue signal its way into the hearts of the Marxist, race-obsessed culture mob — while people not obsessed with skin color continue to be rightly turned off by modern entertainment.

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Berk’s perspective, which is more or less in line with the perspectives of millions of people who refuse to watch spectacles like the Golden Globes and TV shows that tell them they’re awful, got him canceled. Meanwhile, the BLM/Golden Globes will again next year no doubt shamelessly experience embarrassing ratings.

Publicly disavowing someone within its own ranks for going against the grain is a perfect example of why the Hollywood echo chamber is hemorrhaging viewers and why people who once might have casually tuned in to awards shows now avoid them like the plague.

Such award shows are nothing more than a pulpit for wealthy left-wing stars with overinflated egos to espouse political talking points, anyway. The HFPA, NBC and Dick Clark Productions couldn’t handle an alternate perspective from one of their own. Can you imagine what these people would think of you?

Berk’s career is now finished as the left claims yet another victory amid a culture war where non-leftists are being silenced. He spoke out and was summarily disavowed and canceled.

Who’s going to tell these people Berk’s opinions are actually mainstream?

More importantly, and we each have to ask ourselves this, when will we take a stand against the ongoing culture war as Berk did?

Right now, we’re being routed.

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Johnathan Jones has worked as a reporter, an editor, and producer in radio, television and digital media.
Johnathan "Kipp" Jones has worked as an editor and producer in radio and television. He is a proud husband and father.




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