The Tamesis
I remember it clearly every time someone said that black word in front of me. “What’s wrong with my words?” asked a stranger on the street with a glass of blue sparkling wine, circa 1999. “Why is she dressed like a nigger?” a former friend (emphasis on former friend) messaged about a girl’s costume at a Dalston Halloween party. “The N-word, the n-word” airs on the BBC at the Baftas on Sunday.
You already know what happened. Tourette Syndrome activist John Davidson heard racial slur sinner Actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented awards. The BBC, a bastion of political neutrality, carefully removed any mention of Palestine from its broadcasts, as well as Davidson’s homophobic slur against Alan Cumming and managed to leave out the “n” word. They have apologized, but a little too late, as the quagmire of the online disability versus minority debate deepens.
Now, any thinking person can see the difference between involuntary tics and “Why is she dressed like a black letter?” We also all agree that people with Tourette’s syndrome (or any other disability) have the right to attend any awards show. At the same time, I think we can agree that black (and brown) people, famous or not, have the right to not be racially profiled, either publicly or privately. These seem like basic etiquette and are awkward to type. However, the BAFTA situation has been used by right-wing pundits to use the row as a counterpoint to wokeness, with the idea that black people are hyper-sensitive to race.
Of course, there are two n-words. One is a racist derivative of “negro” ending in -Well. The other is the recycling of the slur by the group being attacked, ending with -one. You’ll find the latter all over pop culture—Kanye and Jay-Z are big fans of the song, and even J-Lo has sung it. We can debate whether this usage is a form of liberation or contributes to a black identity built on self-hatred. The British use of the word does not reflect American history; even though the colloquial use here is Americanized language, if you use the “n” word, it is directly racist. We don’t have a gray area, but we can understand the n-word in sinner It’s different from the words shouted by actors on stage. Popular opinion seems to deliberately emphasize this distinction.
Not long ago, after the penalty shootout, I wrote an article about how racism exists in Britain. Our system suppresses not only black excellence but our basic human rights (read how the British education system is failing black boys ). Black British people are not that sensitive because they are micro-aware of the microaggressions that are coming. But you’re unlikely to be called “nigger” on the street, which is why we feel so cruel and gut-wrenching when we hear it on television—and why, even if we know what we know, our first reaction is to say the person who shouted it is wrong.
In a fair, progressive society, we must be able to reconcile the conflicts of disability, history, and television with our insatiable appetite for outrage. There is always an awkward negotiation between someone else’s reality and our own. The only dignified response is to hold two uncomfortable truths at once: One can no Take responsibility for your words, they can still hurt. Sometimes progress doesn’t mean everyone feels safe. Sometimes progress is imperfect, and sometimes progress is painful. We’re terrible at dealing with complexity as a group, but maybe – despite the constant growing pains – this is what living together actually looks like?
