With the Oscars behind us, it’s clear: awards season isn’t just about who wins, it’s about who gets protected, whose dignity is safeguarded, and whose presence is taken seriously. For BAFTA, this year’s ceremony offered a stark contrast, one that, if someone were deliberately scripting how not to build a sense of belonging, couldn’t have been better executed.
That was the first thought that came to mind in the wake of the fallout from this year’s British Academy of Film & Television Awards (BAFTA). For those unfamiliar with the controversy, during the broadcast, as Sinners stars Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan presented, John Davidson—an advocate with severe Tourette’s syndrome and supporter of the film I Swear, which deals with the subject—shouted racial slurs during the ceremony. He later explained in a written statement that he left the ceremony halfway through to prevent further disturbance. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) apologised during the broadcast.
But the incident proved to be a public relations fumble of the highest order for the BBC, due to the inconsistency in their editorial decisions for the ceremony’s broadcast. This mistake was made worse by the fact that they had shown the capability for precise editing in other segments of the show.
Not offending anyone would seem to have been the order of the day, which makes the gaffe with the Sinners cast that much more baffling. A joke delivered by actor Alan Cumming, which targeted President Donald Trump, was edited out. Outbursts with slurs directed towards women were edited out. The broadcaster also completely removed a “Free Palestine” statement by filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr. during his acceptance speech, indicating a clear mindfulness of censoring overtly political or controversial messages. Furthermore, even innocuous language was deemed inappropriate; the colloquial, mildly profane word “piss,” used by director Paul Thomas Anderson, was also cut from the live-to-tape broadcast.
And there lies the problem, my friends. The broadcast was live-to-tape. That means they had a chance to nip and tuck the broadcast into whatever they chose before people saw it. The good people of Beyonce’s internet understood that, hence the subsequent noise. The obvious inconsistency in what they chose to censor—successfully removing certain political and profane comments while failing to remove the anti-Blackness set the internet ablaze.
So, no political statements on the Middle East? Check. No bad words about POTUS? Check. Delete the homophobic slurs? Rightfully so. Check. Apparent anti-blackness toward two Black men who are in the midst of a career-defining wave in the wake of their international blockbuster film? Let it fly. It always feels like anti-Blackness is the acceptable transgression.
The prevailing feeling was that there was care and attention for some and a lackadaisical attitude toward the anti-Blackness that was allowed to be broadcast.
Awards shows are supposed to be where industries come together to lift up their biggest and brightest. A night of connection around what for some is their life’s work, bringing many people from their diverse paths to this one moment in time for celebration. “It doesn’t matter where you are from, you’re here now, and you are one of us” is the implicit message.
By not taking the steps needed to ensure the incident with the Sinners cast didn’t make air while being vigilant for others, the message seemed clear. One of these groups doesn’t deserve protection or care. On a night when the underlying idea is to call people in, that didn’t happen here.
By no stretch of the imagination was this an easy situation. How do you produce a live television broadcast, create a safe space for those differently abled, while having a space for protecting those persecuted for their sexual persuasion, while filtering political views, yet ignore the racial overtones? It’s complex. It’s not easy. But doing the right thing seldom is.
And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. At the Academy Awards, Teyana Taylor was physically stopped by security as she tried to rejoin the stage during a celebratory moment. The incident quickly went viral but what followed is just as instructive. The Academy moved swiftly to condemn the behavior, calling it unacceptable and signaling that the moment did not reflect their standards.
That kind of clarity matters. Not because it erases what happened, but because it shows what it looks like when an institution recognizes harm in real time and responds with urgency. And it raises a harder question in contrast: why did that same level of care and decisiveness feel absent in the handling of anti-Blackness at BAFTA?
It is easy to see that this is a situation that has no winners. Be clear, no one is casting blame on Davidson. His vocal tics are involuntary. That is the nature of his condition. The idea of blaming him for the outbursts isn’t fair or appropriate, since they are beyond his control.
The BBC, as well as John Davidson, apologized for the incident. But those apologies seem to center on disturbing the evening more than the offence to Michael B. Jordan or Delroy Lindo. Even in the post-show discourse surrounding the night, some seemed to blame those offended by the anti-Black slurs for centering themselves instead of rushing to absolve Davidson of any wrongdoing because of his condition.
Progressive circles have long been criticized for “tone-policing” the language of our public discourse. In fact, hate of that policing was foundational to the oppositional stance of the PodBros of the manosphere. The sterilization of our language to the point of being more concerned about being politically correct is not the goal. The idea is that through care, we can create space for all of us. Through care of how we treat each other, we can recognize the humanity of us all. It allows for the safeguarding of us all. Where we often go wrong is in the execution of the criticism. The criticism is quick to arrive in many cases, but the action to ensure a sense of belonging is lagging.
It’s very easy to hear talk of belonging and feel like it’s some fancy, downtown $20 word used for talking points from academics and politicians. Belonging is simply the ability to be valued and to show up as your full self.
We want to be seen. We want to exist in the world without having to shrink for someone else’s comfort. We want to be cared for.
What we do in real time speaks to who we are. And yes, mistakes happen. I make them regularly. We all make them. But I would offer that we should all take a moment to check our default settings. What are the core drivers in the choices we make in these situations? Where does that undervaluing of a community come from, and why was it so easily acceptable? Why is it so easy to allow anti-Blackness to be a part of our daily discourse? What does it say about how Black people are viewed that the same care was not exercised for us as it was for others?
As we answer these questions, let us find our way to not only treat each other better in front of the cameras but in our lives as a whole. We collectively have to find a way to make a place for everyone. It’s not just a matter of making everyone “feel good”. It’s a matter of our collective survival. We only need to look at the newspaper on any given day to see the results of not viewing ourselves as reliant on one another.
This BAFTA debacle was a chance to drive all the progressive talking points home with a proper handling of this delicate situation. This was a chance to protect belonging in real time. This was a chance to do the right thing.
And it was missed.