An email sent Sunday by a former Hollywood Foreign Press Association president criticizing Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and likening BLM to a hate group touched off a firestorm among many of the organizationâs members.
In the email, Phil Berk, who served eight terms as HFPA president, shared a post that called BLM a âracist hate movementâ and described Cullors as âthe self-proclaimed âtrained Marxist.ââ It was sent out to the associationâs members, its staff and the groupâs general counsel and chief operating officer, Gregory Goeckner.
The email lands at a sensitive time for the HFPA, which has come under pressure for not having any Black members as well as allegations of ethical and financial lapses raised in a Times investigation into the group. Last month, the HFPA pledged to make âtransformational changeâ and retained a strategic diversity advisor, Shaun Harper, a professor of racial, gender and LGBTQ issues at USCâs Marshall School of Business, and an outside law firm, Ropes & Gray, to audit and review its policies and membership requirements and bylaws. The HFPA, which in recent weeks has reached out to the National Assn. of Black Journalists and NAACP, plans to announce a set of reforms on May 6.