The silence after the slur may speak louder than the apology ever did
The night was supposed to celebrate cinema’s finest — instead, it became a masterclass in institutional failure.
Delroy Lindo, the Oscar-nominated star of Sinners, revealed this week that neither he nor co-star Michael B. Jordan received a personal acknowledgment from BAFTA organizers following a deeply uncomfortable incident during Sunday’s ceremony in London. A Tourette syndrome advocate — John Davidson, the real-life inspiration behind the BAFTA-nominated biopic I Swear — involuntarily shouted a racial slur multiple times throughout the evening, including while Lindo and Jordan stood onstage presenting the award for Best Visual Effects.
The outbursts, a recognized symptom of Davidson’s neurological condition, rippled through several moments of the broadcast. Expletives disrupted a speech from BAFTA Chair Sara Putt, and another interruption cut through the acceptance speech for Best Children’s and Family Film. Host Alan Cumming addressed the audience directly, explaining that Tourette’s syndrome is a disability and that Davidson’s tics were entirely involuntary — framing the moment with care and context.
What followed for Lindo and Jordan, however, was a different kind of silence.
Speaking to Vanity Fair at a Warner Bros. afterparty, Lindo said the two actors handled the moment as best they could but expressed clear disappointment that no one from BAFTA took the time to address them personally afterward. No such conversation ever came.
When the Broadcast Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
BAFTA officials did issue an apology to viewers who caught the slur during the BBC One broadcast — which aired two hours after the live ceremony and left the moment unedited. Curiously, the same broadcast omitted director Akinola Davies Jr.’s call to “Free Palestine” during his speech for outstanding British debut, a detail first reported by Deadline that raised its own set of questions about editorial selectivity.
Lindo and Jordan Were Not the Only Ones
Sinners production designer Hannah Beachler added significant weight to the conversation through a post on X, revealing that she personally heard the slur three separate times that evening — once directed at her directly, outside the venue on the way to dinner. Her account painted a fuller, more troubling picture of the night than what appeared on screen.
Beachler Finds Words Where Others Couldn’t
Beachler acknowledged the profound difficulty of the situation, describing it as nearly impossible for everyone involved. She did not dismiss Davidson’s condition or the complexity of his presence at the event. What she pushed back on was the ceremony’s closing apology — one framed around whether audiences were offended, rather than offering an unconditional acknowledgment of harm. Many, including Beachler, found that framing dismissive.
Her response, measured and deliberate, captured something essential: the distinction between understanding why something happened and being unaffected by it. She made clear the slur was not something she could simply shake off — it landed, it hurt. And yet, she conveyed, it could not define or diminish her as an artist. Her sense of self, she suggested, exists on a plane that such moments cannot reach.
What BAFTA’s Silence Really Says
The episode raises urgent questions about institutional responsibility in moments that sit at the painful intersection of disability advocacy and racial harm. Both realities are true simultaneously — Davidson’s tics are involuntary, and the word he repeated is one of the most historically loaded in the English language. Navigating that tension with genuine care requires more than a boilerplate disclaimer at the end of a televised broadcast.
Lindo‘s quiet, measured disappointment may ultimately prove more damning than any public statement. When two Black artists stand on one of cinema’s most prestigious stages and walk away without a single word of acknowledgment from the organization that invited them there, the omission becomes its own kind of message.
BAFTA has yet to issue further comment.
Source: HuffPost
