reported<\/a> that floor managers on the night informed guests and attendees sitting in the vicinity of Mr Davidson that they were likely to hear outbursts and exclamations, without specifying what exactly they were likely to hear, so it can\u2019t have come as a huge surprise to a good number of people in the room.\u00a0<\/p>\nIndeed, it was but one of Mr Davidson\u2019s audible shouts during the course of the evening.<\/p>\n
Mr Davidson was there in connection with the film, I Swear, a biographical comedy-drama about his own life, and for which actor Robert Aramayo (who plays Mr Davidson) won the Best Actor award on the night. Speaking to a CNN reporter on the red carpet before the event, Mr Davidson said that \u201cCertain things \u2014 like today, lots of people around, I\u2019m feeling very, you know, more tics in case I lash out. Different situations can trigger different emotions and tics and stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n
Little did he know.<\/p>\n
For their part, the men who were actually on stage, despite their evident shock, seemed to take it reasonably well, Michael B. Jordan keeping his silence while Mr Lindo simply said that he wished someone from BAFTA spoke to them afterwards about the incident. Fair enough. It is a loaded term, especially in the American context, and was probably the last thing either of them expected to be shouted while they were up on stage.<\/p>\n
Boy, did people queue up to be outraged on their behalf, though, among them actors Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce, the former writing below an Instagram post that \u201che meant that shit\u201d while the latter said on X that \u201cit\u2019s infuriating that the first reaction wasn\u2019t complete and full throatted [sic] apologies to Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe insult to them takes priority. It doesn\u2019t matter the reasoning for the racist slur,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sinners production\u00a0designer Hannah Beachler decided to take things up a notch to a positively spiritual level, claiming that one of Mr Davidson\u2019s outbursts was directed at her on the night and that while her \u201cspiritual vibration is tuned to a higher level than what happened,\u201d she is \u201cnot steal [sic], this did not bounce off of me\u201d.<\/p>\n
The whole incident clearly didn\u2019t \u201cbounce off\u201d Mr Davidson either, who chose to leave the hall and watch the rest of the ceremony from a screen, despite the fact that, as BAFTA said in its subsequent statement, it \u201cshould have been a night of celebration for him\u201d as well.<\/p>\n
The moral hordes have been busy in the aftermath, though, offering such enlightening comments as \u201che should have stayed home if he knew he was prone to this\u201d, and \u201cInvoluntarily says the N-word, but voluntarily refuses to apologize\u2026 we know what you are\u201d. Another social media user, whose post on the topic racked up thousands of likes, said that while he has sympathy for people who struggle with a disability, \u201cif you use a wheelchair and accidentally run over someone\u2019s foot you instantly apologize\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true, Mr Davidson in his statement didn\u2019t apologise, saying rather that he was \u201cdeeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u201cI have spent my life trying to support and empower the Tourette\u2019s 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,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t need to be said, but clearly it does: John Davidson doesn\u2019t have to apologise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If he did so, why shouldn\u2019t he have to apologise to the hundreds, likely thousands, of people he\u2019s encountered in his lifetime who\u2019ve taken issue with his tics and utterances? That would be no sort of life at all. But then, those who\u2019ve rushed to take offence on the actors\u2019 behalf don\u2019t seem all that concerned with Mr Davidson\u2019s wellbeing at all.<\/p>\n
This incident has revealed that for no small number of people, the matter is settled: race comes above disability in the victimhood hierarchy where a clash between the two is perceived to have taken place. In those situations, the disabled will be treated with little more than polite contempt, if even that, as evidenced by the torrent of abuse and accusation levelled at Mr Davidson in the wake of his, again, involuntary comments.<\/p>\n
People who no doubt think of themselves as good and righteous will without a second thought put forward the idea that a disabled person should just stay at home if there\u2019s the slightest risk they\u2019ll offend or inconvenience someone, or that if they choose to come among us, they should have to apologise to each and every one of us whose toes they tread on.<\/p>\n
There\u2019ll be no sleep lost by Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, Hannah Beachler or any of the innumerable morons outraged for them, but it\u2019s likely a different story for John Davidson who I imagine will probably, sadly, in future steer clear of events he has every right to be at. <\/p>\n
A real shame for him, and for all of the other people with Tourette Syndrome who\u2019ve now seen that they\u2019re going to be held accountable by the world\u2019s shiniest, happiest people for something entirely out of their hands.<\/p>\n
Compassionate, my ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One could be forgiven for thinking that this year\u2019s BAFTA drama was scripted, were it not for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[120229,93,61,60,146331,86117,147564],"class_list":{"0":"post-316178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-baftas","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-john-davidson","13":"tag-michael-b-jordan","14":"tag-tourette-syndrome"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}