https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/alan-cumming-john-davidson-i-swear-outbursts-1236669691/
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BAFTAs Host Alan Cumming Asks for ‘Understanding’ as Tourette Syndrome Campaigner John Davidson Shouts ‘Strong Language’ and Slurs at Winners and Presenters
BAFTAs host Alan Cumming addresses outbursts from Tourette's campaigner John Davidson, who is the inspiration for nominated film 'I Swear.'
Variety (variety.com)
With this Tourettes discourse, I'm seeing a common pattern of conversations where Black and white people see the world very differently:
* Lack of empathy for Black people
* Lack of differentiation between malicious intent and harmThere's lots of empathy from white folks for people with Tourettes. Ironically, the little empathy that I am seeing for Black folk, is coming from white folks with Tourettes.
If someone had a physical tic that led them to shove people, they might shove someone off of a cliff, killing them.
If they shoved an old white lady off of a cliff, they would immediately apologize for the harm they'd caused.
They wouldn't say "Oh it's a tic. I have a disability. Not on purpose."
@mekkaokereke doesn’t seem like this is really about the disability, rather that it’s about self preservation. Build an excuse into the public discourse and now you have a safety net for when you inevitably push someone off a cliff. But the safety net is for the pusher.
Sadly, not enough folks are going to give this honest thorough analysis and I’m not sure how that changes.
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BAFTAs Host Alan Cumming Asks for ‘Understanding’ as Tourette Syndrome Campaigner John Davidson Shouts ‘Strong Language’ and Slurs at Winners and Presenters
BAFTAs host Alan Cumming addresses outbursts from Tourette's campaigner John Davidson, who is the inspiration for nominated film 'I Swear.'
Variety (variety.com)
With this Tourettes discourse, I'm seeing a common pattern of conversations where Black and white people see the world very differently:
* Lack of empathy for Black people
* Lack of differentiation between malicious intent and harmThere's lots of empathy from white folks for people with Tourettes. Ironically, the little empathy that I am seeing for Black folk, is coming from white folks with Tourettes.
If someone had a physical tic that led them to shove people, they might shove someone off of a cliff, killing them.
If they shoved an old white lady off of a cliff, they would immediately apologize for the harm they'd caused.
They wouldn't say "Oh it's a tic. I have a disability. Not on purpose."
@mekkaokereke I feel like if Anthony Hopkins could accept an Oscar for Best Actor at home, this guy could've stayed at home for the BAFTAs too.
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@mekkaokereke I feel like if Anthony Hopkins could accept an Oscar for Best Actor at home, this guy could've stayed at home for the BAFTAs too.
@mekkaokereke Also, if you were to tell me that I could be at an awards ceremony where a movie made about my life would possibly accept a prestigious award, but if I attended, there was a 5% chance I would call Delroy Lindo the n-word in front of thousands of people, my friend, I would just stay home
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If the shoved woman's surviving family said, "If he knew he had a shoving tic, why was he up there? Are there ways we could have protected our loved one?"
It would feel weird to see people attack the family, "HE HAS A DISABILITY! ARE YOU SAYING HE CANT BE IN PUBLIC ANYMORE?!"
Again, I'm not saying having the n-word shouted at you is the same as being shoved off a cliff. It's not.
But I am saying that white folk discoursing about this are treating it like just a rude word, and Black folk definitely are not.
And we're talking as if there aren't Black folk with Tourettes.
@mekkaokereke Involuntary hurtfulness and vile racism are still unacceptable and should be followed by public, sincere apologies. “Sorry, my brain made my mouth do it” isn’t enough - the disability can’t be coddled. Maybe I’m wrong about tourettes, but cruelty isn’t acceptable.
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BAFTAs Host Alan Cumming Asks for ‘Understanding’ as Tourette Syndrome Campaigner John Davidson Shouts ‘Strong Language’ and Slurs at Winners and Presenters
BAFTAs host Alan Cumming addresses outbursts from Tourette's campaigner John Davidson, who is the inspiration for nominated film 'I Swear.'
Variety (variety.com)
With this Tourettes discourse, I'm seeing a common pattern of conversations where Black and white people see the world very differently:
* Lack of empathy for Black people
* Lack of differentiation between malicious intent and harmThere's lots of empathy from white folks for people with Tourettes. Ironically, the little empathy that I am seeing for Black folk, is coming from white folks with Tourettes.
If someone had a physical tic that led them to shove people, they might shove someone off of a cliff, killing them.
If they shoved an old white lady off of a cliff, they would immediately apologize for the harm they'd caused.
They wouldn't say "Oh it's a tic. I have a disability. Not on purpose."
@mekkaokereke yeah, I am pretty anti-car largely because I think it's a bunch of people with shoving disorders on cliffs.
People should not drive if we didn't get adequate sleep, we should not drive regularly if we have ADHD, we should not drive if we have a distracting passenger or the vehicles safety features are not fully functional or we're getting to that age of increasing mistakes or if we're likely to go too fast or in areas where the street is badly designed, lacks sidewalks etc etc.
So it in no way surprises me the way you describe it, because you see the same thing after most car crashes. Victims injured and nobody taking responsibility - like they didn't intend to hurt anyone but the whole system is built to make the injury more likely.
There are systemic ways to fix it that wouldn't be too onerous (better public transit & urban design; a bleeping delay) but expecting that it's just okay that third parties get hurt makes it less likely those fixes actually get deployed. -
If the shoved woman's surviving family said, "If he knew he had a shoving tic, why was he up there? Are there ways we could have protected our loved one?"
It would feel weird to see people attack the family, "HE HAS A DISABILITY! ARE YOU SAYING HE CANT BE IN PUBLIC ANYMORE?!"
Again, I'm not saying having the n-word shouted at you is the same as being shoved off a cliff. It's not.
But I am saying that white folk discoursing about this are treating it like just a rude word, and Black folk definitely are not.
And we're talking as if there aren't Black folk with Tourettes.
BTW - the whole thing was on 2-hr delay and "the BBC was alive enough to edit out a “free Palestine” plea from one winner"
How BBC Missed The Racial Slur That Could Define The 2026 BAFTA Film Awards
Inside story of how BBC missed John Davidson's unintentional racial slur directed at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo during BAFTA Film Awards.
Deadline (deadline.com)
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No medication possible. No cure. And he knew he had uncontrollable intrusive thoughts whenever he saw a vulnerable person on a ledge.
@mekkaokereke There is medication for Tourette's, for the record. To reduce the symptoms at least.
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BAFTAs Host Alan Cumming Asks for ‘Understanding’ as Tourette Syndrome Campaigner John Davidson Shouts ‘Strong Language’ and Slurs at Winners and Presenters
BAFTAs host Alan Cumming addresses outbursts from Tourette's campaigner John Davidson, who is the inspiration for nominated film 'I Swear.'
Variety (variety.com)
With this Tourettes discourse, I'm seeing a common pattern of conversations where Black and white people see the world very differently:
* Lack of empathy for Black people
* Lack of differentiation between malicious intent and harmThere's lots of empathy from white folks for people with Tourettes. Ironically, the little empathy that I am seeing for Black folk, is coming from white folks with Tourettes.
If someone had a physical tic that led them to shove people, they might shove someone off of a cliff, killing them.
If they shoved an old white lady off of a cliff, they would immediately apologize for the harm they'd caused.
They wouldn't say "Oh it's a tic. I have a disability. Not on purpose."
@mekkaokereke I had ChatXYZ summarize your thread and it says if someone who doesn't have Tourettes yells the n word then you can push them off a cliff.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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BAFTAs Host Alan Cumming Asks for ‘Understanding’ as Tourette Syndrome Campaigner John Davidson Shouts ‘Strong Language’ and Slurs at Winners and Presenters
BAFTAs host Alan Cumming addresses outbursts from Tourette's campaigner John Davidson, who is the inspiration for nominated film 'I Swear.'
Variety (variety.com)
With this Tourettes discourse, I'm seeing a common pattern of conversations where Black and white people see the world very differently:
* Lack of empathy for Black people
* Lack of differentiation between malicious intent and harmThere's lots of empathy from white folks for people with Tourettes. Ironically, the little empathy that I am seeing for Black folk, is coming from white folks with Tourettes.
If someone had a physical tic that led them to shove people, they might shove someone off of a cliff, killing them.
If they shoved an old white lady off of a cliff, they would immediately apologize for the harm they'd caused.
They wouldn't say "Oh it's a tic. I have a disability. Not on purpose."
@mekkaokereke I’m told in that same broadcast they used a tape delay to cut out someone advocating for Palestine.
They could have done the same for the tic, but chose not to.
Cutting things out of live broadcasts is a solved problem.
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@mekkaokereke Tourette’s is not making up words, it’s people who are using words they use or those around them use.
This reminds me of the people using the “I was drunk” or “I took Ambien” to explain racist comments. You only use those words if they are in your vocabulary.
@CStamp @mekkaokereke This.
Nobody is going to convince me that a medical condition can make you suddenly use a word that's not already in your repertoire. If you say it in public, you've been using it in private white settings or floating it around in your head because you're a racist piece of shit. -
BTW - the whole thing was on 2-hr delay and "the BBC was alive enough to edit out a “free Palestine” plea from one winner"
How BBC Missed The Racial Slur That Could Define The 2026 BAFTA Film Awards
Inside story of how BBC missed John Davidson's unintentional racial slur directed at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo during BAFTA Film Awards.
Deadline (deadline.com)
@lawrence_stevens @mekkaokereke that's the thing that left me the most puzzled. why on earth do you not edit it out? really seems like they didn't think it important.
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To wit, a vocal tic reflects, in some part, the cultural context in which the tic manifests.
The vocal tic at issue isn't non-linguistic throat clearing, coughing, sniffing or grunting. Nor is it repetition of voluntary speech of others (echolalia) or oneself (palilalia), but rather words emitted rather than repeated.
This makes it either words coming out of the obscene speech center of the brain (because, yes, humans specialize for that), i.e. coprolalia, or else disinhibited speech, where here disinhibition entails a failure to avoid behaviors otherwise understood to be inappropriate.
Which is to say, white discourse may pretend it's not a rude word, but the Tourette's syndrome, itself, most certainly makes no such pretense. The tic is the voicing of obscenities or at the very least rudeness.
The inability to not do so is the disability. The rudeness of the word, however, that's established by the culture. That's established by whiteness, by white supremacy. The tic is just working within the rules of what counts as obscene, tactless, offensive or rude.
Which is all to say, when white folk make an issue about folk being harmed by a vocal tic, they're not defending the disabled person.
They're using that person as a human shield to protect white society, to defend white history.
@beadsland @mekkaokereke He didn’t inadvertently speak Chinese or Latin. He’s going to speak words he knows.
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Can I just recognize that this is really hard? Like really hard?
As you know, I don’t have your experience, but there are words about me and my people that I think come close and I can understand what you’re saying.
But there’s also a difference between a person uttering a word and a person saying it when they mean it. Both hurt, but the latter is so much worse.
I remember when I was in high school a Black friend asked me what a certain slur about me meant. Hearing them utter it was hurtful, but knowing they just didn’t know was mitigating and gave me an educable moment.
Tourette’s is obviously different and it isn’t an educable moment about the word, but it’s also a situation where the intent to be hurtful isn’t present.
So, yeah. You’re right. But also this is just really hard.
@Bam
You are seeing it as a hurtful word.It's history makes it a threat of violence.
If he'd made a comment about rape towards a woman it would be closer to the effect.
What should not be hard at all was a better reaction. At least not treating it as a random hurtful but unintentional insult.
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If the shoved woman's surviving family said, "If he knew he had a shoving tic, why was he up there? Are there ways we could have protected our loved one?"
It would feel weird to see people attack the family, "HE HAS A DISABILITY! ARE YOU SAYING HE CANT BE IN PUBLIC ANYMORE?!"
Again, I'm not saying having the n-word shouted at you is the same as being shoved off a cliff. It's not.
But I am saying that white folk discoursing about this are treating it like just a rude word, and Black folk definitely are not.
And we're talking as if there aren't Black folk with Tourettes.
@mekkaokereke recognizing harm caused makes sense, the tiktok video at least agreed on that.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
