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.

Aw gold star for you for googling Delroy Lindo and feeling smug upon finding out he was born in Lewisham. My point still stands as his parents were part of the Windrush generation and he moved to the US at 16 in 1968, the same year MLK was assassinated. If you’re trying to insinuate this man wouldn’t have experienced horrible racism and having the N word shouted at him on live TV would be no big deal to him, please piss off and go read a book.

That's good but there would be no need to speculate with "apparently" if he made a public apology for his public remark, which caused public distress.

If you say something that hurts and upsets others in private then by all means, a private apology is acceptable but if you say something terrible publicly (and it doesn't get much more public than this) than a public apology is not an outrageous expectation.

In fact, it is the refusal to do this that is flaming the issue.

Well, for myself it's the fact that so many people let racist comments from a poster on this thread slide without so much as a whisper that shocked me, and that is racist in itself.

And no. I haven't said that Davidson should self-flagellate - I think his statement is pretty good, although I understand other people may not be happy with it. And I don't think MBJ or DL are the most oppressed people ever.

My points have mostly been around the fact that it is not unreasonable for people to feel upset by tics, and that some people may be unable to cope with tics for their own reasons. Not that people should exclude Davidson, or that they should be angry at him, but that it is not a moral failing to have an emotional reaction to a tic that comes in the form of a shouted slur, insult, or threat.

So, compassion for both sides, in essence.

Reporting for the ableist implication that tourette’s, a very real and impossibly hard disability, is being used as an excuse to be racist and that it is voluntary.

Oh, we're back to 'black people call themselves the n word, therefore WHITE people can, too'. FFS, do no one understand the difference between an oppressed group RECLAIMING a word among themselves, and the white race using it?

This is 2026. That racist bigots are still so ignorant of the effect of white people using that word just shows the depths the UK has plunged to in racist ignorance. No wonder Reform is so popular.

'Black people say it, so white people can too', Oh just do FOTTFSOFOATFOSM.

With that, this thread is hidden.

Right, so you just don't understand any condition except Tourette's. Great.

You insist that someone, for instance, who may have a complex and traumatic history with sexual violence and domestic abuse, can control whether or not they have a trauma response to a man shouting 'stupid bitch', for instance. Which is ridiculous, and wrong.

Clearly your compassion and understanding goes no further than Tourette's

And I haven't said that people should be angry. I have said that it is not unreasonable for people to be hurt or upset to some degree, because of a tic.

Oh, we're back to 'black people call themselves the n word, therefore WHITE people can, too'

As a white person, he didn’t call black people the N word. His brain, completely involuntarily, made his body shout the word out loud despite his voluntary knowledge it’s offensive.

HTH.

I disagree that he owes a public apology to appease the professionally outraged rent-a-mob, many of whom have now been hounding an Australian John Davidson simply because he has happens to share the same very common name. That’s the level of stupidity that we are dealing with here. No doubt they’d object to the wording no matter what he says and unlike most of the Hollywood big names, I doubt that John has the resources for and instant access to PR people, reputation managers and speechwriters to script an apology for him. Any help is likely to come from charities like Tourette Scotland/Tourettes Action.

That is not remotely what I said, is it?

But if you are suggesting that it would be wholly fine for a black person with Tourette’s to shout this word, but an equally blameless white man shouting it must be condemned, then you are being entirely irrational.

Hide away. Empathy is needed on both sides and if there were black people who were upset, then compassion is due. But if they chose to be offended to the point they criticize someone with a disability and demand segregation, then they themselves are lacking in empathy.

Except there’s plenty of ableism (easily evidenced and they were the most deleted posts) and not a lot of evidenced racism.

What a shame this thread has been derailed into a bunfight along the lines of probably all the other current Tourettes threads.

I can assure you, nobody wants to read pages and pages of that! Not on this forum anyway.

I was really interested in the OP's perspective and was hoping to see a discussion about it.

@slet

before I go, reported for calling African Americans with families who had ancestors lynched 'professionally outraged rent-a-mob'. Have one of your ancestors hanging from a tree by the KKK and then have someone call you a 'professionally outraged rent-a-mob' by someone ignorant of the intergenerational trauma of black people by someone who has performative outrage for one group only, a white group.

Why do you think I don’t understand any other condition?

Of course it’s perfectly reasonable to have a trauma response.

But with time, that trauma response can be rationalised with knowing it was from someone with a severe disability.

Think of it the other way round. Imagine what it must be like going through every waking moment of your day knowing you might be triggering trauma responses in women, victims of racism, other disabilities etc and knowing not only that you can’t do anything about it, but the more you try and suppress it the worse it gets.

I agree that both sides need empathy.

JD is probably the first White man to mention the word in the public square for 30 years, but lets all call him a racist. Lets get ourselves all worked up to fever pitch because it could be another 30 years before a White person say's it again, so we need to get the most out of outrage while we can.

People not bothering to educate themselves on Tourette’s and Coprolalia is what’s flaming for issue.

Clearly a comprehension issue here. The poster is clearly referring to people who actually have no actual place in the debate, but tag onto any cause they see as righteous and in this case have directed their ire towards the wrong person. Absolutely nothing in that post related the term “professionally outraged rent-a-mob” to African Americans.

I’m not calling African Americans rent a mob. Most of the professionally outraged are white liberal Americans as can be evidenced on Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. Not the people who are presenting a nuanced take on how they know that it was involuntary but that that word holds so much power that it still hurts, even with that awareness, who are speaking from lived experience. But those who have no real involvement in this but who are still foaming at the mouth and enjoying the witch-hunt of a disabled man with a very real and very disabling condition. The same people who are idiotic enough to attack a completely unrelated Australian man. There is absolutely no point in trying to appease people who are that dense and that ignorant of Tourettes and disability in general.

Well said.

So with time, it's potentially possible that the response could be rationalised, yes. But initially, and possibly always, that response might occur. And I don't think it would be unreasonable to not want to force yourself to experience a deeply distressing trauma response every time you interact with someone.

And obviously, it must be terrible to be Davidson!! I can't imagine how isolating and mortifying it must be, and I have every sympathy for him.

It's a very difficult condition precisely because it's so antisocial, and hopefully awareness means most people aren't bothered by tics, but I don't think it's unreasonable for certain tics to hit certain people in a way that hurts/upsets them, and I think they should be allowed to feel those feelings without being told they're terrible people.

If you say so. I think I've been pretty clear about WHY I've said it.

Frankly I'm fed up the missing the point and over simplifications in politics across the board. Issues are deeply complex. Sometimes you can't always protect everyone. You do your best but you also have to understand that sometimes there are impossible situations where there are no winners.

Tourettes is one of those situations which can't be controlled.

But there is a persistent idea that there MUST be an apology, there MUST be a recognition of harm, there MUST some one responsible, there MUST be some one to blame. Sometimes theres just not.

Tbh, whilst I think the BBC might have handled it differently and perhaps better I STILL think that it wouldn't have been accepted and there STILL would have been a whole issue because the problem ultimately is that people do not want to accept people with Tourettes in society because they want to be faced with a difficult and unpalatable situation. BECAUSE they still have an agenda to push and they are determined to use the misfortune of someone vulnerable with Tourettes to do that. We also have a massive desire as a society for sanitisation and hiding things that don't fit with that. We'd rather pretend that it doesn't exist and erase it. All of this adds up to the issue with those with Tourettes ending up in a shitty situation though no fault of their own.

There has been a persistence on this thread to push the idea of Tourettes being associate with racism even whilst saying 'oh well i don't think there should be an apology'. It is still asking for an acknowledgment of wrong doing though. One that probably doesn't really exist.

This is a very rare situation where no one is ultimately wrong. Its just awful all round but it comes back to recognition - as per the equality act - in terms of who is most at risk and who is most vulnerable in that situation at that time.

Yes this is a situation where everyone does just have to walk away calmly and just get the fuck on with it. The lessons learned crap won't actually help those with Tourettes. The lessons learned crap won't change anything with regards to racism, because you actually have to have racism to do that.

What we learn from the situation is that muddying the waters with language only confuses matters. It doesn't reclaim shit. It leads to accusations where theres no real intent. It leads to situations where people think they can say things but it causes problems because of who said it being deemed unacceptable. Language needs to clear and accessible to all without this 'in crowd' or layered meanings issue because those create conflict points.

In the case of Tourettes we have people who have issues with communication full stop.

Communication is about verbal and visual cues. It is about social connections and relationships. Its about context and intent. Its about the overt and the implied.

Tourettes does not have a hidden underlying implied meaning - it does not reflect offensive views that a person might be hiding. Its context is a neurological condition that can't be controlled. It reflects socially accepted and already acknowledged understandings of the unacceptable. It has clear visual and verbal mannerisms which are not consistent with normal patterns of behaviour which we all know and recognise. There is no targeting nor intent. Its a manifestion of your worst nightmare of thought. And yet STILL we somehow have to ignore this, and 'acknowledge the suffering it causes to others'? Even though that actively makes the ticking and anxiety issues that drive Tourettes worse. Hmm. No. We need to recognise when we all just need to let things go even if it makes us upset or hurts us because actually otherwise it causes way more problems. Its not about proving a fucking point.

No. Sometimes we have to understand that we just need to walk away and deal with these difficult issues that Tourettes throws up in a more appropriate way and at a more appropriate time when that vulnerable person isn't going to get caught in the cross fire.

I haven't heard or seen anyone call JD a racist or made any other comment with regard to his views. I don't know what his opinons are other than relating to his own condition. It is the use of language that is offensive and the fact that this is being seen as acceptable which normalises those words - in this case they were racist but other groups would have been offended due to the offensive nature of the language used. People are censored when offering views quite respectfully and calmly, accepting the offensive language is ok due to whatever reason normalises its use