John Davison BAFTA Tourette’s incident and competing rights

[slet]

It’s interesting how this is being discussed atm. I see Ash Sarkar has framed it as an example of competing rights between disabled people and victims of racism, forgetting about intersectionality. But there is a struggle from those on the extreme left to see how women’s rights are compromised by ceding to TRAs.

not expressing myself very well but thought it had some interesting parallels with the sex and gender debate.

But, He only calls black people the n word. Not white people. That shows some level of consciousness there. Even if he cannot help it.

But that’s not true. It’s like his brain says, in the blink of an eye “oh God, the worst word these people could hear is N**r, mustn’t say-“ then his brain tics and he says it.

Think of it like trying to not think of a pink elephant but your brain can’t help but shout “PINK ELEPHANT” while you’re trying not to think of it.

I was wondering if John had used this term before in a tic. Could his team have contacted BAFTA & BBC production units beforehand to prevent the distress on both sides? I.e adequate sound production/ editing facilities in the ‘van outside’ and as pp said a while ago why have mics on the audience. Obviously this is wise after the event but there will have been weeks of preparation for this programme.

There’s a lot the thread has demonstrated. Not least the tendency for people to want to ‘take a side’, show how ‘their side’ is absolutely the worst off, and then dismiss everything that challenges their position.

(Not everybody, obviously).

So wheel out the disabled person to "celebrate" him then put him somewhere away from the nice people cos we don't accept him??

Imagine waking up and typing three whole paragraphs about saying sorry when the person you’re quoting has explicitly stated multiple times that an apology is not required. This thread has shown we have a serious issue with reading comprehension in this country, open the schools 😅

The only condition in the world is Tourette's, it seems.

Nope. Your comments are illogical and offensive and as always in those kind of scenarios, once the poster gets themselves tangled up, they try to deflect to other scenarios. It's a specific scenario and you are incorrect in the way you approach it, as repeatedly explained. A reasonable person should never prioritise 'feelings' of an able-bodied and minded person over the person with a disability. You have some education about Tourette's to do, as well as about the fact the world doesn't revolve around those two actors, or around you.

It’s not an accurate analogy at all. What has trans women got to with anything? If it were a meeting advertised for women to discuss their experiences of sexual assault and a trans woman was attending, I’d argue women should have the right to know a man would be attending. Pre Supreme Court obvs
and luckily wouldn’t happen now. No reasonable
adjustments have to be made for men to be in women’s spaces so yeah, irrelevant.

It would be if it were ‘a white person known to have racist tendencies is going to be there. You might get abused (intent). Come or don’t’.

John has a disability. This. Is. Not. The. Same.

I honestly despair for people’s comprehension skills.

We really fucking do, but not for the same reasons as you think.

Yes. It’s clear from this thread that people don’t understand the condition. I don’t think “John will be here. He has TS. He may say something offensive” would be enough. I think there probably needed to be explicit explanations of what may be said. People may expect “fuck” but not the N word.

Or, you know, someone could make a film to explain it.

But if you have an “own condition” and understood coprolalia properly as a condition, then you’d know that there’s nothing to be triggered by.

Black people know perfectly well they aren’t going to be triggered by Dave Chappelle’s frequent use of the word in his Netflix comedy specials, because they understand that it’s Dave Chappelle. So equally, if they understood John Davison’s condition properly then they know it’s just like Chappelle using it, a word that comes out without the intention of harm.

But if you have an “own condition” and understood coprolalia properly as a condition, then you’d know that there’s nothing to be triggered by.

Clearly you don't understand how 'being triggered' works, as it's not something a person can control. You'd think you'd understand that, as Tourette's works the same way...but apparently not.

They were winding you up (I glossed over it as it was getting boring) but I’m failing to see where the blatant racism was. Happy for you to provide examples and for me to be corrected.

MBJ and DL were the ones on stage, on TV in front of millions so they absolutely were the ones who should’ve been acknowledged.

How hard is it to say ‘I wish MBJ and DL, along with other POC in the room and the wider audience did not have to experience hearing that word on a night of celebration’?

I don’t misunderstand what you’ve said. I’m going by your actions, which are to keep doubling down on targeting the least powerful person and the person with the least ability to change. You started well; attacking the powerful. Now you are targeting the weakest person in this scenario.

I’m going to quote your words back at you with one change and then that’s it.

”If MBJ and DL were decent people they’d have empathy and look to address it directly in this extreme circumstance. We’d also expect JD to reciprocate that empathy, but it should be mutual…”

Is that wrong to say? Yes, because they didn’t create this situation. None of them did.

Were you wrong to insist JD isn’t a decent person and has no empathy if he doesn’t address them personally? Yes.

Because he did not create his disability. He had no power over what he said. Comparing it to a one off incident with a car simply shows that you have no understanding of a life long condition where this incident is, quite simply, Tuesday.

Or equally saying there has been absolutely no racism in some of the responses. (Rather than in the incident itself)

There were 110? thereabouts use of the N word in Django Unchained. Directed by a white man. Context is key.

There has been undeniable racism!! A poster on this very thread was making outright racist jokes and comments, and did end up being deleted, but until then, multiple commenters were all just letting it slide. It was pretty horrible.

Oh, so blatant racism is fine and dandy if someone is trolling? Great. And if you didn't see the racism, then you perhaps need to educate yourself on that.

I said I was happy to be given examples to educate myself. I already asked for many examples as on the other thread there were sooooo many, but none given. This one is dripping in racism, please educate me.

Seems like not agreeing with anything falling for John Davidson’s public flagellation and not agreeing that MJB and DL were the most oppressed people in the room is racism.

Yet people who are aware of coprolalia aren’t bothered by being yelled at with “FUCKING CUNT”. I’m not.

People who aren’t aware of coprolalia ARE triggered by that.

People CAN control whether they are triggered by coprolalia, whatever the shouted words may be, if they take a moment to understand it.

If people are triggered by the words, whatever the shouted words may be, because they have never needed to, or bothered to understand and it caught them by surprise, that isn’t nice. And I can understand that would invoke a negative feeling initially.

But that doesn’t mean there’s justification for ongoing anger towards the person suffering from coprolalia or justification for demands for certain actions from him. What should he say sorry for?

“I’m sorry you weren’t educated enough about my condition that I made an award winning film about.”

“I’m sorry other people didn’t tell you enough about my condition before you came.”

The guy made a film explaining to all the people who hear what he says “it’s not about you” and still people think it’s about them.

What struck me on hearing about this is that black people use that word themselves. That means that the word, in itself, is not inherently so offensive that it should never be used.

So if, on hearing that word, the hearer has to check the skin colour of the person using it to decide whether to take offence, then there is a degree of choice involved in that offence. Taking offence is not an uncontrollable response, even if there is an negative or shocked automatic reaction. Ultimately then, whether offence is taken ought to come down to intent.

I have read that the black actors on the stage looked startled, but did not otherwise respond. In a perfect world, they might have been ready with a witty retort that would have defused the situation, however not responding negatively is enough. If that’s true, then good for them.

It sounds to me as if others have taken offence on their behalf, which is incredibly unhelpful and does nothing to make anti-racism campaigners look reasonable and (sadly) makes them simply look prejudiced against those with disabilities.

This is somewhat analogous to the whole hate crime/non crime hate incidents situation. Some people who take offence are unreasonable and assuming an offence has been committed based on someone reporting that they feel offended is open to abuse. There has to be acknowledgement within society regarding how a theoretical rational person would respond. Otherwise we descend into madness as the perpetually offended bully the rest of society into silence.

@GrooveArmada
'A disability trait cannot be categorised as offensive because the person virtually has no ability to act otherwise. It's neutral.
You are literally arguing that a disability trait can offend people of colour here, it's beyond belief.'

I think this is a good summary of much of the disagreement on this thread. I strongly disagree with what you say here. I think something can be offensive regardless of the intent of whomever said it. I can have an intent to help someone and still say something offensive. I can blurt something out bc of my tics and say something offensive. You would say neither of the above could be offensive.

I think the two views lead to a lot of misunderstanding about what others are saying ITT.