The BAFTAs N-word scandal has been very revealing
At the BAFTAs on Sunday night, John Davidson – whose story of living with Tourette’s syndrome is dramatized in the (very good) film I Swear – shouted out the N-word when black actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were on stage to present an award. You’d hope that by now people might understand the mechanics of Tourette’s symptoms – that the tics are totally involuntary, and consist of erupting with the worst possible things at the worst possible times; the imp of the perverse dialed up to 11. But no. The cruel and ideological politics of identity still have a grip on the mediocrities of the creative industries This was another one of the increasing number of events in this century that feel almost comically demonstrative.
