https://blacknerdproblems.com/this-bafta-stuff-aint-hard/

What day we on for this shit? Three? Four? Midterms? And yet it feels like we are having a dishonest conversation. Or rather one where folks are trying to solve the wrong problem. To catch you up to speed, The British Academy Film Awards went down on February 22nd in London. While Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting the award for best visual effects, they were accosted in the room from a guest repeatedly calling them the Jim Crow special, the N Double G Nuclear. The hard R, if you will. Didn’t even rotate the slurs like Uncle Ruckus told them too.

Now listen, I’m gonna get these jokes off and it’s more of laugh to keep from crying type shit, but seriously, there’s a lot at play here. For one, the one yelling the slurs was John Davidson, a man living with Tourette syndrome and the real-life inspiration behind the film I Swear. As Tourette syndrome is a genuine disability and this was not the only occurrence of a verbal disruption during the night, it was the most noteworthy for what we can all agree are obvious reasons. I am 1000% not qualified to speak on the intricacies of Tourette syndrome and there is about an 80% chance that YOU reading this aren’t either, so what we not going to do is litigate the legitimacy of it in this instance or in general. And it’s not necessary, as the discourse among serious folks is not that Davidson’s involuntary tics make him racist or harboring some racial resentment towards anyone.

What I am a bit fuzzy on though is like…so, that don’t mean we apologize for shit? And I am legit (somewhat) conflicted about this. Davidson released a statement expressing how he is “deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning.” And like…come on man, we could’ve really wrapped this shit up with a bow. But I can’t help but be a bit technical here. Do we apologize when we knowingly make mistakes or if we have hurt someone? That is a genuine question from me, made relevant by the fact…there ain’t no apology in here. No mention of Jordan or Lindo. Just a statement that basically says, “I feel horrible that anyone would confuse my tics as something I’m doing on purpose.” If that statement is just the end of the line, it implies that Davidson is the or only victim here? See what I’m sayin, fam. And then there’s the “carry any meaning” part because I understand his statement as, “me hitting two men with the ‘your name is Toby now’ from the back of the room carries no meaning for ME (Davidson) because I don’t believe that.” But it does “carry meaning,” even if unintentional, cuz one thing we ain’t never gonna get used to is having dehumanizing language hit us for the world to see . Again, the statement centers Davidson himself and not those directly affected. And again…I’m still working that shit out for myself so I’m not acting like I have all the answers.

So…who’s the real villain of this shit, cuz I don’t think it’s Davidson. I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a BBC/BAFTA. Come on, you knew they were the monster at the end of this book. I don’t know if BAFTA was somewhat innocent in this or it was solely BBC that ordered the code red, but if BAFTA didn’t push back on the actions of BBC, they both gotta hold that weight. After all the non-apologies and actual apologies (from BAFTA themselves), there’s the little issue of asking, why did that shit air? A funny thing happened during the Awards show: Wale Davies and Akinola Davies Jr won the award for outstanding British debut for their film My Father’s Shadow. At the end of Davies Jr’s acceptance speech he stated: Archive your loved ones. Archive your stories yesterday, today and forever. For Nigeria, for London, the Congo, Sudan, free Palestine.” Which, can we just take a moment to acknowledge that this part and the rest of the acceptance speech which you should find, is a fucking hammer!?

Gotdamn man. But back on topic, you’ll never guess what line BBC chose to mute on the broadcast. So…this shit didn’t air live? Ok, cool, cool. But…if they could mute audio…why we still got Jordan and Lindo getting called the New Tiggers on the broadcast? What are we…what are we doing man? BBC later said that “Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the BAFTA Film Awards…” going on to mention Davidson’s condition and apologized that it wasn’t edited out prior to the broadcast. But…that was a choice. They really went Godfather after the hit and said “leave the slur, take the Free Palenstine.” Also, this isn’t fucking Sons of Anarchy, yo. You can drop content warnings for intended content. Verbal tics are also slurs to the folks on stage might be a situation where muting it from the broadcast doesn’t hurt the artistic integrity of the show. So, that’s a problem, because it places a value on what can be aired and what can’t, with Black folks firmly on the lower end of the value scale.

All of this relates to the endless grace that Black people are asked to exhibit. Dehumanizing language involuntary or not is just a small sampling of the things Black folks are often supposed to ignore, forget or or OR come out and show direct support for the offending party so that they aren’t labeled as not understanding. It’s always a trick bag for Black folks who literally just be existing one minute and then the next have to exhibit a behavior so that white folks don’t feel bad. That shit is maddening. Not to mention Alan Cumming coming back to the podium and saying “we apologize if you were offended.” And I just want to say, n***a, were YOU not offended?!

And that’s the problem here, we are still at a point where too many white folks aren’t bothered by this shit unless they need to show that they are bothered. Chrono Trigger gets dropped in the room and everyone stares at the Black folks like, so what are you gonna do about it. Terrible example in this case since Jordan and Lindo are already on stage and thus being stared at by fuck it, you know what I’m saying. It would be nice, just once, for someone that ain’t us to show some leadership on this. Our bad. We cutting this audio. We apologize to Jordan, Lindo, and everyone in attendance. While the language is offensive, we know that it was not said with any intention as they were the result of a verbal tick from Mr. Davidson. Mr. Davidson feels terrible about what happened and hopes that Jordan, Lindo, and others are aware that the tic was not intentional in any way.

Ok, so I lied in the opening, maybe the shit was a little harder than I originally said. Harder, but not like…hard.

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The post This BAFTA Shit Ain’t Hard, Disability is Real, but Y’all Just Don’t Care about Black Folks appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.