The Seesaw

Yoink!

Years and years ago, when I was a much younger woman and had a much more… challenging income situation, I went to the city of Rome for the first time. I was working at Borders (RIP, sweet princess of the High Street) and I had saved my pennies and now in front of me loomed some unclaimed holiday time. I closed my eyes and navigated by heart to the Alitalia website where I booked my return flight in a dreamlike state. Italy!

I don’t remember the flight, only vaguely remember navigating to the station, and then walking from Termini to my cheap hostel. But I remember looking in my DK guidebook loaned from work, figuring out the best routes to maximise my time in the city. I remember biting into a cornetto and sipping a cappuccino, seeing my first Bernini, and getting a gelato near the Pantheon. Italy!

I also remember walking back to that hostel around dusk, after logging more than 30,000 steps walking around. I remember the feelings in my chest and body: exhilaration at a day well spent doing nothing but the things I had always wanted to do; joy and gratitude that I had managed to book this trip — so spur-of-the-moment, so grown up of me! — and now here I was, plotting on waking early enough to go see the Capitoline Wolf in person; that ticklish feeling that accompanies the “maybe I could move here” thought that only materialises when you’re having the best time. And then I saw a man slightly up ahead— older than me, kinda handsome — crossing the road, dodging traffic with a practiced ease, face illuminated by the car headlights. He was crossing to my side, and when he was almost there, he gestured at me, like, wait, I wanna talk to you real quick! All day, I had had interactions that were not common for me in London — I am not unconfident or unaware of what I look like. But the men in Rome had not held back that day when it came to telling me that I was beautiful, or had a nice smile, or how lovely my hair was. So a part of me was braced for another compliment. I slowed down, and prepared to graciously receive the flattery. Sure enough, after he reached me, he called me beautiful. And then, after my thank yous murmured through a smile, he added: how much? He asked more than once. It was very clear to the both of us what he was asking. I recoiled.

I’ve never had whiplash. But I’ve had whiplash, you know? A hard yank back to earth after being flung across the universe at a moment’s notice. It’s quick, it’s discombobulating, it’s rough. It churns your stomach and slicks your palms with sweat, and maybe sends a nervous chuckle to squeeze through a suddenly tightened throat. It robs you so utterly of every good thing you were feeling in the moment right before, and fills the space with a chaos—deafening silence or cacophonous clamour, dealer’s choice—that is exhausting, and leaves you scrambling internally and perhaps externally too. You remember that feeling when you were a kid, and you were at the top end of the seesaw and you could see clear across the playground, and it felt briefly like you were flying? And then the other person cruelly gets off at their end without warning and you fall so swiftly and painfully back to the ground that you’re winded? Hasn’t happened to me in more than 30 years. But it kinda has. It happened that night in Rome. I replayed it over and over, my brain supplying retorts, hours late, that I should’ve responded with. I remember I was angry-crying by the time I got back to my hostel. Furious as I showered later. Itchy as I lay in bed listening to the night sounds of the people sharing my dorm room. Irritable the next morning. It’s more than a decade and a half since it happened. The sting is duller but I’m still kinda upset.

Last night was the Baftas, where the cast and crew of the movie Sinners were celebrated with nominations and even some wins. It was also the night that the n-word was yelled across the room as Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting the first award of the ceremony. The person who shouted it is John Davidson MBE, a Scottish Tourette syndrome (TS) campaigner, whose life story inspired the movie, I Swear (also a winner last night). It apparently wasn’t the only time he made vocal outbursts during the ceremony. Davidson has coprolalia, which some people with Tourette’s also have: involuntary vocal tics, where they might say deeply inappropriate things (for lots of people, this is the only way they visualise Tourette’s, because it’s the most socially outrageous symptom.) In the opening scene of I Swear, Davidson is in Edinburgh to receive his MBE from the queen and upon entering the room, he shouts, “fuck the queen!” Clearly, this syndrome is no respecter of time, place, history, or hurt.

The BBC and Bafta, however… they have to respect all those things and more. By now we all probably have read that the Bafta ceremony is in fact not broadcast live. It goes out after a couple hours’ delay because it needs to be edited down to fit the primetime broadcast window. So immediately, there is an obvious question: John Davidson’s involuntary tic resulted in a monumentally inappropriate word being hurled across a room, and for some reason, the BBC and/or Bafta voluntarily decided, yup, we’re going to keep that in for this broadcast, and also for posterity. (They have since removed it from iPlayer playbacks.)

Furthermore, the choice of words used to explain to the audience what had happened was interesting. Per the BBC’s own report of this incident, host Alan Cumming said: “Tourette’s syndrome is a disability and the tics you have heard tonight are involuntary, which means the person who has Tourette Syndrome has no control over their language. We apologise if you were offended.” [Emphasis mine]

When I read those words from Cumming, my hackles were further raised. The use of “if” raises more than hackles and eyebrows though: it suggests, subtly, that it’s a choice to be offended here. “If you found a racial slur with hundreds of years of deeply painful baggage attached offensive, well, we apologise, I guess!” The use of “if” raises the prospect that taking offence here would be somewhat unusual. Not the norm. That taking offence here, well, it might be understandable, but surely, it should and could not be the default?

I do not have Tourette Syndrome. I don’t anyone personally who has Tourette Syndrome. Today, I have watched short videos on Tiktok and Instagram from a good number of people with Tourette’s (some of them Black), talking about their experience of living with this disorder, as well as the horribly ableist things they have heard and read from people since the Baftas last night and also before. I feel for them. I cannot imagine the extreme anxiety coprolalia deposits in those for whom it is a reality. I don’t know if Jordan and Lindo and the rest of the audience at large were told beforehand that this outburst was a possibility (is it considered standard to do so? I don’t know!) And I don’t know how they were handled after it occurred. I read that Davidson left the ceremony early and have no idea if he spoke to Lindo and Jordan before he did so, or has since. I also read a short Twitter thread from one of Sinners’ production designers, the Oscar-winning Hannah Beachler, in which she wrote: “I understand and deeply know why this is an impossible situation. I know we must handle this with grace and continue to push through. But what made the situation worse was the throw away apology of ‘if you were offended’ at the end of the show.”

Readers, I don’t know how many of you have had the n-word, hard -er, hurled at you. Or even near you. In my experience, it takes you out of your body. It is—unsurprisingly, given the state of the world now, and always—still a word with astonishing power. It hurts. To hear it on a glittering night of accomplishment, at an event in part celebrating the excellence of several Black artists, dressed in all your finery, and full to the gills with pride, excitement, and joy? Well, exponentially more devastating and humiliating. I can imagine how Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan felt. I know the sucker punch it delivered.

After what feels like a lifetime in the content and long read discourse mines, I have a feeling I know how this will probably go. Discourse will shift, rather rapidly, I daresay, to hoping that people use this opportunity to learn more about TS. Some comments have in fact already asked Beachler and others to cool their jets on being offended. We all can stand to be more informed about any number of disabilities (TS is considered a disability under UK law), for sure. We live in a profoundly ableist society. Disability discrimination is baked into the very systems we live by, and thank God for the activists who seek to fight for more and better quality of life-improving policy as well as expand our knowledge and understanding.

I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. I imagine Davidson is probably mortified, and maybe feeling really terrible today. I also know that it is a hobby for lots of people to dismiss the very real pains and hurts of Black people. To tell us that we are overly sensitive. To give us conditional, mealymouthed apologies where the loudest word is “if.” I know that there are lots of people for whom empathy always manages to fall short as soon as it pertains to the distress a Black person feels in light of an objectively hateful word or action being directed at them. People who cannot imagine the seesaw and how it steals our peace, and makes us more and more tired, the more often it happens to us and others who look like us. With ease, I placed myself in John Davidson’s shoes and allowed myself to consider his full humanity, TS inclusive. How many people reject any urge to do the same for the Black people in that hall, and at home? I don’t want to be relegated to “useful teaching moment.” It’s so damn tiring.

I have questions for the BBC and for Bafta. I doubt any answers will be forthcoming, or that if they do come, they will be satisfying. I am angry, in the background way that many Black Brits are familiar with, that this was acceptable to enough people to keep in the broadcast. Who made the decision? What was their exact reasoning, and I want them to explain it to me like I’m 4. How were other decisions about what to be included or excised made? What makes the n-word OK for broadcast? Who gets held accountable for its inclusion? Does it matter that Black people, children included, watched it and now bear a scar? I want the answers even as I don’t think it’ll do much. But I want to register my anger. It’s important that we give voice to anger. Because these things are draining and corrosive.

Delegitimising my anger is a pathway to legitimising my dehumanisation. This is not about the person who involuntarily said the slur. It’s about the BBC and Bafta, who put my and other Black people’s humanity in the balance and decided, meh.