Anti-Black violence happened at the 2026 British Academy Film and Television Arts awards last night.
First, I want to hold space for Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo—two extraordinary actors who turned in the best performances of their careers in Sinners. I want to sit with them and their hearts as they traveled to London and graced the BAFTAs stage for the first time as presenters, and Jordan as a nominee, and what that must’ve meant for these Black men to be internationally acclaimed for their craft—finally! I want to cover them in love as they opened their mouths to present an award together and before they could even get started good, they were made to hear a white man in the audience hurl at them the slurs “N____r b___h!” in the silence.
I wonder if, before this, Jordan and Mr. Lindo had gotten their hopes up. I wonder if they’d finally felt seen in an industry that has overlooked their contributions for years. The look on their faces is unbearable. But they took a beat, read that prompter, and gave out that award. They watched their cast mate Wunmi Mosaku win Best Supporting Actress and their writer-director Ryan Coogler win Best Original Screenplay and I wonder if, even in their joy, that degradation stayed with them.
“You may have noticed some strong language in the background,” BAFTAs host Alan Cumming said on stage of the racial slur hurled by Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson, whose life story with the disability was featured in the movie I Swear which was also awarded that night. Though no other group besides Black people was subjected to slurs, Davidson had also reportedly yelled out “shut the fuck up” to white people on stage. “This can be part of how Tourette’s syndrome shows up for some people as the film [I Swear] explores that experience.”
It’s true: some people with Tourette’s have the most extreme and rare version, Coprolalia, which causes involuntary use of offensive words and even racial slurs. Apparently, that’s what Davidson has. But that n____r only came out when he saw Black people.
“Thanks for your understanding and helping create a respectful space for everyone,” Cumming said. Isn’t it something, what white people demand that Black people “understand”?
Apparently realizing his outrageous statement about “understanding” was inadequate, later in the broadcast, Cumming returned with a weak non-apology: “Tourette’s Syndrome is a disability and the tics you’ve heard tonight are involuntary, which means the person who has Tourette’s Syndrome has no control over their language. We apologize if you are offended tonight.”
If.
The BAFTAs said nothing publicly specifically to Jordan or Mr. Lindo. Nothing to the Black members of the audience in the room nor globally. The BBC had plenty of time to edit out the slur, yet chose to air it on television anyway. When Nigerian-British filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr. won Outstanding Debut film for his excellent feature My Father’s Shadow, and he gave a speech acknowledging those experiencing genocide and occupation around the world, and said “Free Palestine,” the BAFTAs and BBC acted quickly to cut that part out of the broadcast. The BBC erased Davies’ calls for liberation of Sudan, Congo, Nigeria and Palestine. But they left in N____r.
Sit with that.
The BAFTAs and the BBC made numerous violent choices that night and thanked us for “understanding.” The docile negroes who have to smile and push through and “understand” the layers and levels and generations of white violence collapsed into one evening.
“A source told Variety earlier that Davidson was an ‘invited guest’ and under no circumstances would he be asked to leave the ceremony,” Variety reported of the incident. “Under no circumstances”?
It seems the extent of their plan to mitigate any harm was for the floor manager to offer a mild warning before the program began: “I’d like to welcome John Davidson MBE from one of our nominated films ‘I Swear’. John has Tourette’s Syndrome so please be aware you might hear some involuntary noises or movements during the ceremony,” Variety reported the floor manager saying.
But it wasn’t just noises or movements. It was racism. And it wasn’t just Jordan or Mr. Lindo who were slurred. Sinners production designer Hannah Beachler was also verbally assaulted by Davidson with n____r off-camera. She wrote on Twitter:
“I keep trying to write about what happened at the BAFTAs, and I can’t find the words. The situation is almost impossible, but it happened 3 times that night, and one of the three times was directed at myself on the way to dinner after the show.”
This is BAFTAs’ epic failure.
Where, on an institutional level, was their plan to first prevent as much harm as possible here, and to repair potential harm caused? Disabled people belong in the world and must have appropriate accommodations. In this case, the BAFTAs not only should’ve had a stronger warning for its audience about what could come, but also a plan for how to protect all of its invited guests from harm. If a racial slur is a tic that’s triggered when someone sees Black people and you know Black people are going to be in the room, there is a duty here to plan for this accordingly before harm is caused beyond expecting the victims to “just ignore it” or “understand” it—not only by Davidson and his team but also the BAFTAs. This institution failed its duty to work with Davidson to ensure the safety of Black guests. While I find it unacceptable for the BAFTAs to award the fictionalized I Swear while pushing out the real human who inspired the film, it is also unacceptable to subject Black people to n____r. There is no compromise on that. But the BAFTAs and the BBC don’t seem to understand that. And they’re not alone.
Early Monday morning, after a night of backlash, BBC issued a similar unspecific milquetoast apology as its host did: “Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the Bafta Film Awards. This arose from involuntary verbal tics associated with Tourette syndrome, and was not intentional. We apologise for any offence caused by the language heard.” No responsibility taken for their choice to air the slur. No apology for the racism. Just passive voice stretched to its absolute limits. As of yet, there have been no reports of an apology from Davidson, nor the BAFTAs—and many white people on social media seem to believe an apology isn’t warranted in the first place. This is a disability! It’s involuntary! Wanting an apology is ableism! They have said, rushing to extend Cumming’s demand for “grace.”
Yet, “involuntary” is a mitigating circumstance, not a free pass to harm. And what could be more ableist than suggesting disabled people cannot recognize the harm they cause and repair it? Without a doubt, from Beachler’s tweet and Jordan and Mr. Lindo’s faces, harm was done in that room. And harm was done outside of it. There is far more attention on the violence of Davidson’s words and the BAFTAs and BBC’s violent choices in response than there is on celebration of the three awards that the Sinners team collected last night. Their moment was stolen. That’s violence too, and it demands repair. What is stopping Davidson, the BAFTAs or the BBC from apologizing publicly and for real for their anti-Black violence specifically, other than a centuries-old belief that Black people don’t deserve apology?
UPDATE: BAFTAs has now issued an apology specifically to Jordan and Mr. Lindo almost 24 hours after the event: “Early in the ceremony a loud tic in the form of a profoundly offensive term was heard by many people in the room. Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage at the time, and we apologise unreservedly to them, and to all those impacted. We would like to thank Michael and Delroy for their incredible dignity and professionalism. … We take full responsibility for putting our guests in a very difficult situation and we apologise to all. We will learn from this, and keep inclusion at the core of all we do, maintaining our belief in film and storytelling as a critical conduit for compassion and empathy.”
Davidson, on the other hand, issued no apology to any of the Black people he hurled this slur at, releasing instead a statement only acknowledging how mortifying the event was for him. “I can only add that I am, and always have been deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning.
I was in attendance to celebrate the film of my life, I SWEAR, which more than any film or TV documentary, explains the origins, condition, traits and manifestations of Tourette Syndrome. I have spent my life trying to support and empower the Tourette’s community and to teach empathy, kindness and understanding from others and I will continue to do so. I chose to leave the auditorium early into the ceremony as I was aware of the distress my tics were causing.” The end.
Tourette’s is a terrible disability. I’ll never understand what it must be like to live with it. And white people will never understand being Black and being called N____r by a white person. When racism and ableism collide for Black disabled people, they curiously don’t mobilize to call for “grace” and “understanding”—yet the consequences for being Black and disabled in public are deadly. Sonya Massey. Elijah McClain. Ryan Gainer. All killed by police who see disabled Black people as inhuman, inherent threats to be put down. In this white supremacist system, whose feelings get centered, who requires acts of grace, and who is demanded to be gracious are all political. None of this exists in a vacuum.
Jordan, Mr. Lindo and Hannah Beachler were called n____r in the context of an 80-year-old institution awarding its first Black winner in Ryan Coogler for Best Original Screenplay last night. In Big 2026. They were called n____r in the context of the BBC constantly running zionist propaganda on its platforms while erasing calls for a liberated Congo, Sudan, Nigeria and Palestine from its broadcasts “for time,” while leaving in the slur against them. They were called n____r in the context of Sinners competing with and losing to the most basic, most anti-Black movie of the year, One Fetish After Another, over and over again, all season. They were called n____r as the most anti-Black writer-director of the season Paul Thomas Anderson took up another award for Best Director last night, using undocumented Hispanic immigrants and Black women as little more than aesthetic background props for his racist ass white-male-centered bullshit movie, and then declining to say anything in his self-aggrandizing speech about ICE violence against immigrants and Black American women like Dr. Linda Davis who was just killed because of ICE last week.
“I’m not a politician, I’m a filmmaker,” Anderson shrugged through his cowardly answer as to why he wouldn’t speak up for the communities he stepped on to collect his trophies all season. “I try to do it through the work.” The empty work that stated no revolutionary or political vision? The work that caricatured undocumented people and Black women? That used them and threw them away as to not hurt his awards chances with white voters? Oh.
To watch the unmatched Black brilliance that is Sinners and its cast and crew continuously lose to that objectively inferior, self-masturbatory, stilted, stunted, boring, wack ass slog of a movie is par for the course in a white supremacist system that continuously expects Black people to just be happy to be there at all. You have to be twice as good to get half as far, the Black American adage goes. It’s not a challenge for us to accept, but merely a statement of white supremacist reality. They don’t have to yell the word; in those rooms, it’s always hanging in the air.
Love and grace to Michael B. Jordan, to Delroy Lindo, to Hannah Beachler. Love to Ryan Coogler and Wunmi Mosaku. Love to Black people with Tourette’s who are sitting at the intersection of racism and ableism and hearing both be excused and dismissed while erasing the fullness of their reality. May the catastrophe of the BAFTAs spark in us an urgency to divest from these white supremacist institutions that were never created to see or honor us, and to build instead a world that’s safe for Black people and disabled people, that centers the most harmed, and works to repair it.
Stay watchin’,
Brooke
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