Hollywood’s hierarchy of victims

Let’s begin with what should not need saying: a white person calling a black person a ‘nigger’ is one of the most racist and offensive things they could possibly do. That word carries centuries of degradation and violence behind it, and when it is directed at two black actors standing on one of Britain’s most prestigious stages, it lands with the full force of that history.

When Tourette’s activist John Davidson compulsively shouted it at Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, the stars of Sinners, at the BAFTAs last month, it was horrible. As a black Brit, I flinched. Reportedly, Davidson also shouted it at Hannah Beachler, the production designer for Sinners. The fact that Davidson was at the BAFTAs to celebrate a film about his life, I Swear, clearly didn’t soften the initial blow.

I don’t particularly like it when black people use the word, either. I understand the argument about reclamation. I understand the cultural nuance. I will even admit there is something electric about being at a party when only me and the other black guests shout ‘nigga’ during Jay-Z and Kanye West’s earworm, ‘Niggas in Paris’. There is a shared cultural energy there, a sense of ownership over language forged through history, that white people cannot participate in.

But the symptoms of Tourette’s – which in Davidson’s case, include shouting racial slurs – do not recognise context. They do not adjust to the racial politics of the room. What Davidson shouted was a tic. It was not ideological, and it was not an act of hatred.

After the incident, Davidson apologised. I am glad he did, and I appreciate it. At the same time, we do not expect a man with a broken leg to apologise for using crutches, nor do we demand remorse from a deaf person for needing sign language. By that logic, Davidson should not have had to apologise at all.

If anyone has a case to answer here it is the BBC, which failed to cut the slur from the broadcast. Even though the BBC is perfectly capable of editorial intervention when it suits them. Filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr had his ‘Free Palestine’ comments cut from his acceptance speech, supposedly for time reasons. Political speech, when deemed inconvenient, can be surgically excised. Yet when an involuntary slur was shouted, it was left in.

The reaction to the slur has also been revealing. This week we had the NAACP Image Awards in the US, broadcast on BET. In a room full of black Hollywood elites, comedian Deon Cole addressed the Tourette’s incident directly. ‘If there are any white men in the room with Tourette’s’, he said, ‘tell them they can read the room… it might not go the way they thinketh’. He then suggested that any Tourette’s sufferers might want to ‘double up’ on medication. The audience laughed.

It may have been a joke, but it reflected a more widespread reaction to Davidson’s outburst, with various tweeters and stars claiming that he secretly meant what he said at the BAFTAs.

Telling someone with Tourette’s to ‘read the room’ assumes control; suggesting they should take extra medication implies blame. Isn’t this what these stars would otherwise call ‘ableism’? Cole’s ‘It might not go the way they thinketh’ line also suggested that if Davidson’s tics had got the better of him at the Image Awards, the consequences would not have been civil.

Imagine if the demographics were reversed: a room full of white Hollywood stars joking that a black disabled man should have medicated himself more carefully before attending, hinting that if he slipped up it might not go well for him. The backlash would be immediate and ferocious. But since the target here is a white disabled man, there’s no outrage. Hollywood millionaires laugh at a disabled working-class Scot and call it social justice.

Comedians are free to joke about what they want, but the double standards here are striking – and all from a Hollywood set that otherwise finds offence everywhere.

There is a hierarchy at work. Some identities are treated as sacrosanct; others are fair game. Disability commands reverence only when it aligns with the approved politics of the moment. If you are white, male and working class, your dignity becomes negotiable.

I do not minimise the weight of the n-word. It wounds. But principles that apply only when politically convenient are not principles at all. Disabled people constitute the largest minority group in the world, and many of us will, through age, illness or accident, eventually join it. To see Hollywood come together to pile in on a disabled man has made me more uneasy than hearing John Davidson involuntarily shout a racist slur at the BAFTAs.

The woke ideology that governs Hollywood operates on a hierarchy of oppression. Some groups are protected absolutely; others are protected selectively. Those who preach diversity and tolerance while excusing discrimination when it suits them are not moral leaders. They are hypocrites, and no better than the bigots they claim to oppose.

Albie Amankona is a broadcaster and financial analyst, best known for his work on Channel 5, BBC, ITV and Times Radio. Follow him on X: @albieamankona.