Why the BBC and Bafta got it so wrong with their apologies

The Baftas are usually a shining highlight in the British film calendar. It’s something I personally look forward to every year. I couldn’t watch it this year, but, as has been widely publicised and commented on, the ceremony was overshadowed by the shouting of a racial slur.

As you’ll be aware, Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan were on stage presenting an award when an involuntary tic by John Davidson, who has Tourette syndrome and whose life the film I Swear is based on, exclaiming the N-word could be heard. Contrary to some online discourse, this was in no way John’s fault, a vocal outburst he had no control over.  

But the reaction to the incident has circulated around the safeguarding that should’ve been in place, the response to the incident – both in terms of the immediate reaction and the apologies – and how, despite a two-hour delay, the slur ended up in the coverage at all. 

This particular slur is profusely triggering and offensive, carrying generational trauma – the apology in the moment and the aftermath should have resolutely recognised this fact. More on that in a minute. Simultaneously, Tourette’s tics are completely involuntary and there is absolutely no intention behind them. And Bafta did ensure that they explained to the audience the nature of the tics.

Yet just because something is involuntary, that doesn’t take away the impact and weight of hearing a slur. Someone from Bafta/the BBC should’ve been checking in on Delroy and Michael immediately after the incident transpired. And surely they could’ve foreseen this might’ve happened and put in the necessary guardrails (like not having a mic by John, perhaps?).

Then came the ‘apologies’ from Bafta and the BBC. Describing something as “if” you might’ve been offended is totally dismissive and out of touch – of course there was offence. It’s a stark lesson in avoiding the use of such terminology for apologies: if you can see something is blindingly the case, say it, don’t skirt around the point. The use of “if” is putting the emphasis on a person’s perception rather than acknowledging the reality of what took place. 

The most calamitous error, however, was the failure to edit out the word from the TV coverage. The lack of editing has been put down to human error and the team of producers not hearing the slur. But this reasoning was profoundly diminished when it then emerged that during Akinola Davies Jr’s speech, references to the genocide in Palestine and the words ‘Free Palestine’ were omitted from the coverage. 

Errors happen, yet there was enough diligence to ensure this and other tics were absent – and the error ‘stance’ looks even more shaky given Warner Bros, the studio behind the film Sinners, immediately flagged their concern over the incident to Bafta before it went live. Davidson himself has since come out and said the organisations told him any offensive words would be removed. 

Writing for the Guardian, Jason Okundaye eloquently describes the experience of Tourette’s, and counteracts some of the narrative online that this somehow could’ve been a Freudian slip – in his words, this is “not only futile but actively unhelpful”. Anyone who has watched the film I Swear, which is superb, will be aware of the innate daily struggle of having Tourette’s – and people with the condition should definitely not be excluded from spaces. 

Rather, in not omitting the word from the coverage, Jason explains how both black and disabled people have been let down, and that it was the BBC’s sheer negligence that was to blame for the incident. This is the point that comes through from all of this. (Jason’s article is a great write-up worth reading.)

These actions, whether around editing or how organisations respond to incidents, matter hugely. Against a fragile backdrop of division and pockets of the online landscape sadly spewing racism and hate (several black footballers have been on the receiving end in the last week alone), due diligence with processes and messaging by organisations is overwhelmingly due. That should be a given.