Tourette’s/BAFTAs offensive language

[Lochroy]

I wasn’t watching, I’ve just read the article on BBC news. I will admit I know little of Tourette’s and therefore posting to understand.

The tics agree involuntary, and often use offensive language. But what I’m struggling to get my head around is excusing use of the N word because it was caused by the disability when it was (seemingly) only directed at black people?

Also presumably it’s learned vocab so children don’t have swear words as tics? How does this develop?

So segregation for people with disabilities in case healthy wealthy people get offended!?!?! Fuck. Me.

Where did I say segregation? I literally said a separate area he could go to if this type of thing happened. I never said he should not be allowed in the building, which is why hat segregation is.

How does a guardian sitting next to you stop Tourette’s?

Are you healthy and wealthy though? Lol.

Are you actually serious?!?!! He doesn’t need a guardian FFS. What difference would that make anyway?!?!

everyone was told at the start what might happen. They need to have some fucking understanding and empathy for a disability.

this is making me so angry.

Also, diminishing the hurt that these gentlemen will be feeling because they’re “healthy wealthy people” is batshit. Are you essentially saying they have to ignore how it’s made them feel because they have money?

You can understand it’s involuntary and upsetting for him while also acknowledging it was entirely unacceptable for two black men to have to hear that word during their speech.

I guess you have your answer. I was trying to be kind.

You literally want to segregate him though. 🙈

Its a processing thing in your brain. So people will naturally know these words, know whats acceptable to say & in those situations their brain would process correctly & they wouldn’t say anything (unless they were really horrifically racist). With tourettes essentially the processing goes all wrong & throws out words/movements that you have no control over.

things that can make it worse are things like stress overexcitement so the awards show will have made the symptoms worse.

Instead of the outrage & hate, calling the man racist, its a great educational piece to learn about Tourettes. The film is going on netflix on 10th March, people should watch if they really want to learn/understand.

as for editing it out/apologising. I can understand why they left it in but it maybe wasn’t the greatest idea in hindsight given the absolute hate & trolling now going on.

No, I don’t, you just don’t want to have a conversation about this without acknowledging that what happened was wrong.

I cried my way through most of the film, its so sad the lack of understanding, and it's here too.

I'm not an expert, but my understanding of it is that the condition makes a person say the most inappropriate thing possible. So the N word was directed at a black person only. Just like some people with tourettes shout about bombs or drugs at airports, or pedophiles around children.

Or a quote from the movie 'spunk for milk' because he was making tea at the time!

I am so sad about this, the film I Swear is incredible, and the amazing man it is about has done so much good for the tourettes community. I feel like all of this negative press and ignorant celebrities (Jamie Fox being the one I've seen the most from) clutching pearls over this is unravelling everything that man has done, his life's work trashed because of ignorance. It's okay not to understand a condition if you don't have any experience of it, but it is quite another to take to social media without doing an ounce of research first. He deserved to be there as much as everyone else last night, and obviously being that will have been so difficult for him, as people will have known if they had seen the film and understood his condition.

My son doesn't have tourettes but he does suffer with a lot of tics, and this is all such an awful reminder to me of the school teacher he had who told his class that it was okay to laugh at him when he's making funny noises because he's being silly, leading to almost a year out of education entirely when he was 9 years old. Also of another parent who repeatedly encouraged her child to punch mine in the face for being disruptive in class. And my child doesn't even have tourettes, I can't imagine how much worse things can be for children who do.

I'm so angry and upset about all of it.

if they can cope with the word being used in music and films then they can cope with a disabled person using it involuntarily. FFS

I’m very serious.

@whereismyhusbandA) he didn’t, which is a crying shame given that the actor who played him so beautifully won two awards for it that he didn’t get to see him collect and B) why the hell should he? He’s not a criminal, he’s not harming anyone except those who know the context behind the words being spoken and still decide to be offended by them.

If a word can be inoffensive when used between particular groups of people then it cannot be claimed to be offensive in all contexts. This is a very particular context when it need not be taken offensively.

You literally want him to be put away from all the people that might get offended by his disability. How fucking backwards. I thought the world had moved on. Clearly not.

But while they know that now, it doesn’t change what happened in the moment and the fact that for a long time they will have believed they were being racially abused while speaking on a global stage.

But it’s only black men, so it doesn’t really matter!

But you’re comparing apples with oranges. A child saying the N word at school is not the same as a disabled person who literally cannot help it at all. One needs correcting, the other is entirely pointless correcting

And I disagree that offence is valid if someone is offended. Being offended is always a choice

Again, not what I’m saying, but you clearly aren’t in the headspace to have a rational discussion about it.

They? If you think I’m abliest then I think you might be racist based on your absolute refusal to understand what these men have experienced.

I'm torn on this. I appreciate he has a disability, but feel awful for the poor men on stage who presumably only heard racist abuse being shouted from the crowd at the time. Afterwards, with context, they may be understanding but I can't imagine how that felt in the moment.

Bigger question I suppose, does one person's disability and right to attend events trump the protected characteristics of the people on the receiving end of that person's outbursts?

But, children or not, they are making a deliberate choice to use those words. They may not fully comprehend the meaning, but, in the situation you describe, they are intended as pejorative and taken seriously because of this.

There’s not much point in apologising if there was nothing you could do to prevent it though, is there?

The apology being sought by some is surely covered by the pre-warning that members of the audience had Tourette’s and may involuntarily say offensive comments.

Okay, I’m going to assume you’re a woman.

Let’s say you’re speaking at a huge work event. You’re nervous. This is a huge moment in your career. You’ve put hours of effort into your speech, this is your moment. Maybe you’ve endured lots of sexist abuse in the past.

You’re finally on stage. You’re getting ready to speak and someone yells a misogynistic slur at you. You have to continue your speech. In that moment, are you really going to sit and think “oh maybe it was XYZ that caused it”?

No. You’d be upset. You’d be shocked and overwhelmed and to be honest very fucking angry that your moment was interrupted in such a way.

You then find out it was someone with Tourette’s. Does that provide an explanation? Yes. Does it undo those feelings and make the moment any less hurtful? No.

It’s ironic that those preaching empathy and understanding refuse to have any for the men who were abused.