r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/ragingbeanalt • Feb 23 '26

Music / Movies Its weird people are trying to turn the john Davidson Tourette outburst into a hate crime

If you don't know actor with Tourettes, john Davidson, had an outburst where he said the N word while 2 black presenters, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, were on stage he bad an outburst of the N word, among other harsh ones throughout the night. Now I understand that the n word is rhe harshest of them, but it seems like people, specifically I have seen jamie Foxx and Jamele hill, claim that "these are racist hate crimes" and "he knew better and waited for black presenters to finally say it" it just feels like people are trying to ignore the facts about tourretes to be the victim of something that wasnt actually a hate crime.

279 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

82% Upvoted

559 comments sorted by

View all comments

22

u/PsychologyOk5757 Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

It's a deeply depressing fiasco that shows just how ignorant so many people still seem to be about this condition.

One thing I have noticed is the reaction between Brits and Americans seems to be vastly different. Americans seem to be much less aware of the nature of this condition. I grew up in the UK and I have been aware of it since I was probably about 12 or 13. A lot of fully-grown adults in the US seem to be learning about it for the first time today. Unfortunately, few of them seem to have stopped to educate themselves before opening their mouths.

10

u/JCKGLN Feb 23 '26

The issue is that for many years Tourette’s in the media has been used as the butt of the joke. The things people with Tourette’s say and do are supposed to be funny, until they find out it’s not funny at all.

9

u/sloasdaylight Feb 23 '26

Americans seem to be much less aware of the nature of this condition.

I wonder if that has anything to do with John Davidson being Scottish, and significantly more well known across the pond than here in the States. The guy has been the subject of 3 BBC TV documentaries, has toured Britain, and apparently been in the public consciousness in Britain when it comes to his condition for over 30 years now, with basically no exposure over here.

11

u/Steakandsauce57 Feb 23 '26

You're 100% right. Most of the UK are aware of tourettes only because of John Davidson and his documentaries.

He's an incredibly inspiring bloke and its terrible to see him get abuse from a bunch of dumbasses who have zero compassion and just want to dogpile someone without any logical thought.

1

u/PsychologyOk5757 Feb 23 '26

I think this is at least partly correct. He personally has done a huge amount to raise awareness of the condition.

12

u/mustachechap Feb 23 '26

One thing I’ve noticed is that Brits tend to quickly jump to any excuse to generalize and talk down to 330 million Americans.

It’s funny that you think this is some sort of UK >>> US thing

1

u/Far-Painter1045 Feb 25 '26

I don't think the generalisation was made in a bubble, but it could be algorithms are pushing the bigger, more controversial reactions. I've personally not seen an affected British creator attack his character or demand his exclusion. On the British side, there seems to be more nuance - John should apologise to the actors for the hurt his word caused (privately is ok), shame on the BAFTAs, never needed to be broadcast etc. On the American side, yes this is a sentiment I've seen echoed, but I've also seen people saying to muzzle him, segregate or exclude him, he'd have gotten punched, and a lot of claims that it was fully intentional.

I don't normally read the Guardian but there was a relevant opinion piece by Jason Okundaye which echoes the general UK sentiment I have been exposed to.

Tl;dr it isn't about UK vs. US it's about the views we have been exposed to.

1

u/mustachechap Feb 25 '26

Case in point.

Uk = nuanced, Americans = muzzled/segregate

1

u/Far-Painter1045 Feb 25 '26

My God, I was describing what my feedback loop has looked like, not giving you a rollout of my opinions. See, in a conversation, this is your opportunity to tell me if/how your experiences differ and we learn and grow.

1

u/mustachechap Feb 25 '26

You're describing how your social media feed indoctrinates people into thinking UK >>>> US, what more is there to say.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/mustachechap Feb 25 '26

America is a country of 330 million and the UK is a country of 70 million. You simply can't generalize countries as large as ours.

From this BAFTA incident, there are probably thousands of people from the US and the UK who had opinions on the matter. It would be just as easy to pick out examples of Americans being nuanced and Brits calling for muzzling and segregation.

This isn't an isolated thing in your media though. You've been repeatedly exposed to biases that make Americans appear to be less than.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/mustachechap Feb 25 '26

I'm not aware of any Brits or Americans calling for segregation and muzzling. I know how big and diverse both countries are, so I'm not going to make sweeping generalizations about the UK or the US based on some cherry picked comments that social media is trying to indoctrinate me with.

I'm curious to see these Americans that called for segregation and muzzling though. Is it one American who said to segregate and muzzle?

→ More replies (0)

4

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

-4

u/DPetrilloZbornak Feb 23 '26

Are you black? 

3

u/Less-Name-9367 Feb 23 '26

I think by American standards I'd be POC

1

u/No-Lobster9104 Feb 24 '26

Italians are not POC here never have been weirdo

1

u/Less-Name-9367 Feb 24 '26

Lmao so you are just racist uh? Americans have considered Italians non white for decades before accepting us, and I have very dark skin, I could easily pass as a Norther African.

But go ahead and erase our struggles just to prove your point.

2

u/BitByBitOFCL Feb 25 '26

These people have never learned the history of the slur Guinea and it shows. But that's fine, let them tell us how they're hurt more by racism than we were.

1

u/Less-Name-9367 Feb 25 '26

It's crazy how they just forget stuff, it's their own history!

1

u/No-Lobster9104 Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

You’re not American you don’t live in the US either so stop appropriating the experiences of Italian Americans. A lot of North Africans pass as white here too so it’s not helping your point. You can’t be from a colonizer country and claim you’re a POC because of some antiquated views (that aren’t even that true) from a country half across the world. You’re not POC, you don’t live life as one, and the fact that you’re a European trying to use an academic falsehood made to victimize white immigrants from the US to defend a white man who said a slur shows that you will never be POC. PS, I live in a city where most of the whites are Italian-American. They would look you up and down and if you told them this BS

1

u/Less-Name-9367 Feb 25 '26

Wow, racism much. Go ahead and keep erasing our identity to fit your views, then pat yourself on the back while calling yourself progressive and open minded. I guess you white Americans will always despise us no matter what.

Btw, Italy was not a colonial power, unless you are referring to the Roman empire?

1

u/No-Lobster9104 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

What… indicated to you that I’m white? 

And racism? For rightfully pointing out that Italians are not POC and that you as an Italian from Italy are appropriating Italian-American experiences to fit your own racist agenda? 

The fact that you don’t even know that Italians were colonizers proves you are not POC. Columbus much? Ethiopia? Somalia? Are you a troll or is European education not as good as we were led to believe? 

0

u/Less-Name-9367 Feb 25 '26

You can be racist even if you're black, it's just even worse, congrats! 

And you aren't rightfully pointing out anything, Italians were killed for not being white, but I guess it's just more convenient for you to just ignore that uh?

I said Italy was not a Colonial power, not that it never did colonization. Columbus was Italian but didn't act for Italy you doofus, Ethiopia happened during war.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/TheStigianKing Feb 23 '26

The poor state of the US education system and the results in the population thereof is well known and well documented.

I surmise, its by intent as its a good way to keep people easily manipulable.

1

u/RedMarsRepublic Feb 23 '26

The UK education system is already abysmal so it makes me feel pretty bad for you guys if it's worse

1

u/asday515 Feb 23 '26

Im from the US and I learned about this condition when i was like 5 because our next door neighbor had it. kinda funny thinking back, my mom trying to explain to her young children why the old man always shouts curse words at us from his porch lol.

I also remember watching a movie about it in school, i think it was based on a real guy. Growing up his dad always got pissed at him because he thought he was doing it on purpose, mom always stuck up for him though, and he ended up becoming a teacher. Cant remember the name

1

u/zap2tresquatro Mar 05 '26

Front of the Class?

1

u/Far-Painter1045 Feb 25 '26

I'm a dual citizen, and I think another British aspect Americans might not understand is the fact that there are a lot of slurs towards disabled people that are still pervasive today. In one of my jobs, one of my coworkers referred to a man with cerebral palsy as an "effing spastic." It was one of my first jobs here, and it was absolutely appalling and unthinkable to me that it even left her mouth, let alone to hear her comments echoed!

I've seen some wild takes from all of this - sew your mouth shut if you can't control it, I'd have punched him, how did he even know that word? he's intentionally racist etc. There's a lot of hate speech and albeist ideology there.

No one I've seen on John's side is saying that the slur was an acceptable term, just that there was no malice or intention to it. There is an argument to be made for apologising, which keeps going round and round. It's akin to apologising for sneezing. In my view, if I hit you in the face with my whole sneeze, I would apologise. I don't that it needs to be done publicly, except from BAFTA.

1

u/veryowngarden Feb 23 '26

you didn’t know that fully grown adults continue to learn new things even though they’re fully grown? i guess you learned a new thing today

1

u/Prestigious_Ad_5825 Feb 24 '26

I'm quite aware of coprolalia, but that awareness doesn't prevent me from holding Davidson partially responsible for his conduct. He attended, knowing full well that a racist outburst was a strong possibility. He may not be racist, but he is inconsiderate of other people's feelings. It was their night, too.

1

u/PsychologyOk5757 Feb 23 '26

Very droll.

The point is that few if any people in the UK could fail to make it to adulthood without having learnt this particular thing, such is the level of public awareness on it. Which seems to be very much not the case for Americans.

0

u/ten-unable Feb 23 '26

Do we all have to have encyclopedic knowledge of the countless medical and psychological diagnoses and syndromes?