BBC Pulls BAFTAs From iPlayer After Airing Racial Slur – But Why Did It Air At All?

The BBC has now removed the BAFTA Film Awards from iPlayer. Not because something unexpected happened live. Not because there was no time to fix it. But because they failed to cut a racial slur from a tape-delayed broadcast.

Let’s be very clear: this was not live television. The ceremony aired on a delay. Editorial decisions were made. Cuts were made. And yet the N-word, shouted during the presentation by Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan, made it into the final BBC broadcast.

After backlash, the BBC issued a statement:

“Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the BAFTA Film Awards. This arose from involuntary verbal tics associated with Tourette syndrome, and as explained during the ceremony it was not intentional. We apologise that this was not edited out prior to broadcast and it will now be removed from the version on BBC iPlayer.”

They “apologise that this was not edited out.” That wording is doing a lot of work. The issue isn’t that viewers “may have heard strong language.” The issue is that Black audiences were subjected to a racial slur on national television when the broadcaster had the time and power to remove it.

And here’s where it gets worse.

According to Variety, floor managers warned some nearby guests about John Davidson’s Tourette syndrome, but nominees and attendees were not broadly briefed. Delroy Lindo later said he and Michael B. Jordan “did what we had to do” in the moment and wished “someone from BAFTA spoke to us afterwards.” That didn’t happen. BAFTA reportedly offered no follow-up to the two men who had just been publicly targeted with a slur.

Accountability Does Not Vanish Because Harm Was Unintentional

So let’s have an adult conversation.

Nobody should be called a racial slur in public. And people with Tourette syndrome deserve understanding for involuntary tics. Both things can be true at the same time. What cannot be true is that accountability simply disappears because something wasn’t intentional.

If something is out of your control, that may mean it isn’t your fault. It does not mean it isn’t your responsibility. Apologising for harm is not demonising a disability. It is basic social repair. Sympathy for someone with Tourette’s should not require indifference to the Black men who stood there absorbing the impact.

And then there’s the censorship pattern.

The BBC reportedly removed part of Akinola Davies Jr.’s speech from the iPlayer version, including his call to “archive your stories” and “free Palestine.” So one Black man’s political words are scrubbed, while two Black men are left to endure a racial slur in the edited broadcast?

Make that make sense.

The BBC Has Been Here Before and Still Failed the Test

In 2020, DJ Sideman quit Radio 1Xtra after the BBC broadcast the N-word in a news report. Nearly 19,000 complaints later, then-Director General Tony Hall conceded it was wrong. We have been here before. The corporation knows the weight of that word. It knows the history. It knows the harm.

This moment calls for scrutiny and accountability. How did a tape-delayed broadcast still carry the slur? Why was there no clear, immediate support for Lindo and Jordan? Davidson also should not have been placed in a situation where foreseeable harm could unfold. The uneven editing decisions deserve serious examination. Something can be unintentional and still unacceptable.

Pulling the programme from iPlayer is damage control. The harm has already landed, and the clip will circulate far beyond that stage, handed to those eager to strip Black people of dignity yet again. Ofcom should be looking at this. Because when the national broadcaster decides what gets cut and what gets kept, that is not a small editorial choice. That is power.

And Black audiences are tired of being collateral.

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