If you wanted to write a scabrous, over-the-top satire on liberal attitudes, you could hardly do better than use this weekend’s Bafta ceremony. As the end result of progressive, sensitive intentions, a white man sat in the audience yelling the N-word at two highly respected performers of colour – who were then instantly burdened with expected forgiveness. It would make a great novel from Paul Beatty or film from Spike Lee. And yet, the problem was not just the N-word, but the S-word – sooorrr-eeee. Of which, more in a moment.
Of course, it is complicated. A case of competing sensitivities and the now livewire issue of omissions, snubs and complicity-through-silence.
On the night itself, the audience had been kept fully informed about the presence in the auditorium of John Davidson, subject of the marvellous film I Swear, whose star Robert Aramayo ended up sensationally winning the best actor prize. Davidson is well known for having Tourette syndrome, subject to tics and outbursts over which he has no control, and for his work educating the public about TS. But to his own heartfelt dismay and mortification, Davidson shouted racial abuse at Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan. The movie itself, incidentally, concludes by implying medical advances mean the condition can be managed, along with attitudes, and that the matter was these days pretty much on the way to being settled … that happy ending came into jarring contact with reality.
To many in the auditorium, the shouting was indistinct and the awful truth only became widely known as the TV clip was circulated on social media.
The BBC had made a calamitous decision not to bleep out the word, or discreetly drop the audio, reportedly because the producers hadn’t registered it. Well, it’s a human mistake – as opposed to a misjudged way of not erasing TS identity. But the BBC was alert enough to cut the phrase “Free Palestine” from director Akinola Davies Jr’s speech. Evidently, the Palestinian issue was not admissible but TS is. (And incidentally, of course, there was the traditional issue of someone getting hurtfully missed off the “In Memoriam” reel; this year’s unlucky snubbee was the late Béla Tarr.)
As for Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan, they were impeccably gracious, impeccably good-natured. But they are entitled to feel that, just as John Davidson is entitled to have his TS understood, they were entitled to be protected from racial abuse. There is moreover the thorny issue of precisely how important it is that the speaker didn’t “mean” the words. If someone had a neurological condition that meant their arms moved suddenly and involuntarily and accidentally whacked someone … it would still hurt. And in the US, there could be impatience that the history of the black American experience is being regarded as glibly equivalent to Tourette syndrome.
What could have been done? Davidson himself made the decision to leave the event; perhaps there could have been a conversation in advance about him attending only a chosen part of the ceremony, and about what the risks were, and surely no one was better informed about these risks than Davidson. The BBC should have cut the offending language.
But Bafta, the BBC and everyone else has got to stop using the honeyed words of quasi-apology. From the stage we heard the dread phrase: “We apologise if you are offended tonight.” Phrases like “if”, “anyone who was offended” etc are airily dismissive – whoever, whatever – implying that you are being ignorant and hysterical. Presenter Alan Cumming was right to ask for a “respectful space for everyone”. The price for that cultural peace is eternal vigilance.
