An Idiot Sandwich

Given absolutely everything else that had the spotlight - particularly the Epstein files and Mandelson/Andrew Windsor’s arrests - this served as a convenient way to get marginalised communities infighting. It feels deliberate and calculated, and was absolutely targeted at a public that has been trained to jump to hot takes and picking sides.

On the 2026 BAFTAs, there was a man named John Davidson (a well known disability advocate). He has tourettes - and if you didn't know, tourettes makes you say and do things without your countrol (called "tics"). It is literally not possible for the person to control it. So sometimes, yes, the tics a person does end up being things that that person WOULD NEVER DO if they could control it. But they can't.

So, enter the part where Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo are on stage at the BAFTAs getting recognized for their work on Sinners. John Davidson screams out the n word. This is not taken away from the BBC broadcast; it stays on the broadcast, for everyone at home to see/hear.

Now, since then, more and more pieces of this puzzle have come into view. For one, John Davidson also used homophobic slurs when Alan Cumming was there - but the BBC censored that part. For another, the BBC censored someone saying "Free Palestine" at one point in the awards ceremony (I am not sure who said it). So clearly they know how to censor things.

More than this, though: John Davidson was sitting 41 rows back from the main stage when he said the n word. WHY did he have a microphone on him loud enough for it to be caught on tape/heard all the way up on stage?

In conclusion, people are furious because the BBC did not apologize. John Davidson reportedly apologized in private to Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, but the BBC has made no apology for refusing to censor that word and giving all the Black people watching at home (and in the audience!) trauma from hearing that word.

I have a friend with tourettes, and she also has the forms that cause offense, which are coprolalia for words and copropraxia for gestures. These specific forms are fairly uncommon, and it’s actually much more likely for people with tourettes to get completely random movements and sounds.

For example, kicking.

My friend, in middle school, needed a special desk. This is because when her ticks would go off, if she was in a normal desk, she would end up repeatedly slamming her leg into the metal legs of the desk so hard that she would end up with deep, visible bruising. She could not prevent this from happening, even though it hurt her.

That is how little control John Davidson had over what he said.

When a tic goes off, you have zero control over what is said or done.

The pool of tics that someone has at a time has nothing to do with things they typically say or do. It doesn’t matter if they’ve never said the word before in their life, it’s still possible for just about any word they’ve ever heard to become a tic.

John Davidson has been apologizing to people for something he had zero control over, and would never willingly do, because he is aware that it hurts people.