this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Before y'all start
If someone with Coprolalia had a tic to shout "let's fuck" whenever they saw a child, we'd rightfully be taken aback. Maybe forgiving after having the disorder explained but hard to say for that kids parents.
I use this analogy because for some reason when it comes to Black people, people forget we're humans with ongoing racial history and slurs are always harmful and always offensive especially in a highly public event.
He should apologize directly to the Black folk that were impacted, not to the general audience who couldn't give a damn that he said hard R - they can keep the general apology.
this is a mentally ill person w/ a condition which makes him transgress taboos. obviously yelling racial slurs is rightfully a shameful thing to do. no one is forgetting that-- that reasonable taboo is precisely what he couldn't help but trangress.
i imagine he did. do you think he should have made a public, private apology?
From what I've seen, he didn't specifically apologize to the people affected and instead made a broad apology. It's a shitty situation, but I think him not immediately apologizing to the Delroy and Jordan makes me less immediately sympathetic to him. It's possible he offered private apologies but it doesn't seem like that's the case so far.
Should he be required to do this every time he has a tic?
EDIT:
So apparently people feel very strongly about this. I have a cousin with this condition. It is not conscious and not directed when a tic like this happens. It's literally a disability. From an early age he's learned to be generally apologetic when an offensive tic comes out. All the fucking time. Once people know he has the condition it's generally understood they are to be ignored at that point and ignoring them actually helps them diminish in frequency. Anxiety around tics really pushes them out more. People were warned ahead of time that neuro-divergent people were in the crowd who may have uncontrollable tics.
It isn't directed. It doesn't work that way. So the article even saying it was shouted "at" these men is incorrect fundamentally. It was shouted. That's it. The guy left after the incident which is what happens often. Neuro-divergent people like this are consistently not welcomed into neuro-normative spaces and neuro-normatives have many demands that must be met before they can be tolerated in only the most performative ways.
That is how it is because it's condition that interrupts all neuro-normative spaces. Pretty much always. It's more or less unavoidable. To demand so much extra effort be placed on the neuro-divergent because their uncontrollable condition interrupted neuro-normativeness is so ridiculous to me that it edges firmly into ableism. I'm sad to see this kind of ableism accepted in this community.
I think Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo are graceful men and handled it fine. I think the host handled it fine. I think the apology from Davidson was fine. I think the main villain here is the broadcaster for not just censoring the word (they clearly are reveling in the controversy, fuck them) and BAFTA themselves for not stepping up to make sure Mr Jordan and Mr Lindo were fully up to speed and not actually being prepared for the inevitable.
If his tic is saying slurs to Black people then absolutely.
His tic is saying the most inappropriate thing to anyone in any situation. I'm not sure how he's supposed to function mentally if he has to apologise to people endlessly.
No, but a big public setting like this seems an appropriate time for it. Not saying he needs to flagellate himself nor have even apologized in the heat of the moment. There are plenty of ways to make up for an incident like this, even well afterwards. He still might. I'm not saying the guy is beyond redemption or saying anything beyond where my initial sympathies lie. Sinners is an important black film, this was an event that was, amongst other things, honoring black art and black people during black history month and now much discussion about Sinners will be hijacked by this incident. An incident that many people will use in bad faith. Look at the times we live in. Idk for me personally, I apologize for so much less than this so it just seems strange not to actually apologize to the persons most directly affected.
Shitty situation.
Edit: I also don't love how people have been emphasizing how much we should feel for this guy but nearly none of that same empathy has been extended to the black people affected. Yeah it would suck to have this condition. It would also suck to get berated because of your skin color and then get told you don't even deserve an apology.
To be clear this was a choice by the broadcaster to not censor it out. They censored out other things in the broadcast.
it's liberal and bad.
I'm not ItsVibes, what you said shouldn't happen but I think it's be reasonable he did it at least every time he used a slur against a minority person (for example this case) and the other person didn't know about his condition
The whole point of apologizing is first and foremost to acknowledge damage done. People who are aware of his condition might (and only might) not be as hurt, and that's why in those cases such a strong apology might not be needed.
From what I heard he left the ceremony shortly after the incident. I do agree that he should try to apologize to them, but I think in the moment all the shame and embarrassment understandably got to him, and he ran away so as not to cause more disturbance in the moment.
Meanwhile Michael B Jordan and Lindo would've been on stage and then back in their seats in the auditorium. I suppose the guy with tourettes could've waited until afterwards to find them.
He did it to two other people.
Last I saw, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo didn't get one.
His tic is saying the most inappropriate thing at the time. It is not a specific tic, he says whatever he shouldn't say and he can't not. Those affected by that (Which doesn't just include the people on stage, but an entire PoC audience) have every right to feel however they feel about it, be that hurt, humiliated, threatened, denigrated or whatever combination of that is applicable. Given the history of that term and the way it happened in the middle a moment celebrating a cultural achievement of black artists I would be fully understanding of having been affected by the outburst... But John Davidson did not intend to cause offense, and had no meaningful way of not doing what he did, and that must be taken into account. (And to a lesser extent it should also be remembered that this is also deeply humiliating for him)
It's not "whenever they saw a child"
He has an uncontrollable condition, and I'd say easily 8/10 people online complaining about him are claiming that he chose to say what he said.
How does my patience for ignorant bullshit affect you?
Does he say it to white people?
You do not need to explain tourettes, I understand tourrettes. It's almost patronizing to assume this is a conversation about not understanding what a disability is.
This is a conversation on mitigating harm, and you can cause harm and slurs cause harm even if you're disabled and it's unintentional. Asking for some kind of apology or accountability is the least that can be done.
Brushing this off surprised we (Black people) are offended is shallow bullshit.
He says fuck the queen to the queen, he says he has a bomb in crowds, he confesses to random crimes to cops. If he thought cracker was extremely inappropriate he would likely yell that at white people.
You say you understand, but that question reveals that you do not.
You're asking a man who involuntarily says the most taboo thing in any given situation to annihilate his self worth on the daily by constantly having to apologise for his existence.
No one should be asked to do that. I'm sorry that his existence makes you uneasy.
Thank you for demonstrating my point. Genuinely perfect rendition of the "You're racist for assuming I don't understand Tourette's" followed by ignorance of Tourette's. Chef's kiss. This is why I have no grace.
me, listening to michael b jordan's speech interrupted by involuntary racial epithets on repeat, conspicuously shaking my head to let ya'll know i disagree.
It's an awful situation. Unequivocally fuck the BBC and BAFTA, who showed they could exercise editorial censorship when they omitted Free Palestine. And while a warning was given to attendants, it should've been more explicit. And having a racial slur yelled at you at a celebration of your craft is a nightmarish situation that can't have its emotional sting removed by an intellectual understanding of the situation.
But the amount of ableism I've seen is pretty maddening. People will say they understand tourettes with one breath and then ask why he wasn't calling white presenters crackers.
I have sympathy for everything listed above, and fuck the right wingers going "oh but you say it in your rap music" but this is just as much a conversation about disability as it is about race. The man has been hospitalized multiple times because of scenarios like this.
Yeah this is one of those situations where I just feel bad for everyone involved.