Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for TLC
Baylen Dupree, star of Baylen Out Loud, knows firsthand how the tics from Tourette’s Syndrome can hurt those around you and how people with Tourette’s feel awful for the words they cannot control. She shares her perspective on living with Tourette’s, and how people can offer compassion for John Davidson while still acknowledging the impact of the racial slur he said during one of his tics at the BAFTAs when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage. “Tics are not thoughts. They are not opinions. They are not secret beliefs hiding underneath the surface,” she shared in a statement on Instagram. “They are involuntary neurological impulses – like a sneeze or hiccup except sometimes they attach themselves to words that carry weight, history, and pain.”
“It doesn’t excuse the hurt a word carries. Words matter. History matters. Pain matters. But so does neurological reality,” Dupree added. “There is a difference between intent and impulse.”
Related