- Deion Sanders questioned the timing of a racial slur yelled at the BAFTA Film Awards.
- Sanders suggested the slur must be ‘already in you’ to be part of an involuntary outburst.
- The man who yelled the slur, John Davidson, said he felt shame and that it was one of several tics he had that night.
Colorado football coach Deion Sanders expressed dismay about the recent controversy at the BAFTA Film Awards in which a man with Tourette’s syndrome yelled out a racial slur at two Black actors during a telecast on the BBC.
Sanders was asked about it on his weekly talk show on Tubi with co-host Rocsi Diaz in the episode that aired Feb. 26. Diaz questioned why the slur wasn’t edited out by the BBC and discussed the subject with Sanders, who said he had a previous experience with someone with Tourette’s. Symptoms of it can include involuntary outbursts with profane language known as “tics.”
Sanders, who is Black, called for prayers for people who have such tics but questioned the timing of the slur.
“How can that word come out at that time?” Sanders asked on the show, entitled ‘We Got Time Today.’ He said that slur must be “already in you” and learned if it’s in a person’s vocabulary.
Sanders then added another observation.
“The part two of this is, it conveniently came out when two African-Americans were at the podium,” Sanders said.
Deion Sanders discussed timing of the slur
Famed Black actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on the stage at the awards show Feb. 22 when Tourette’s advocate John Davidson yelled out the slur. Davidson was there as the subject of the BAFTA-nominated biopic ‘I Swear” and was diagnosed with Tourette’s at age 25. Davidson since said in an interview with Variety that he felt “shame” about what happened.
“The most offensive word that I ticked at the ceremony, for example, is a word I would never use and would completely condemn if I did not have Tourette’s,” Davidson said in the interview.
On the Tubi show, Diaz also questioned the timing.
“But do you think it would be triggered if he saw two white people at the podium, though?” she asked.
Sanders responded that what made the situation especially concerning was that it was “with two brothers at the podium and it’s Black History Month.”
Davidson had other outbursts at the BAFTA show
Diaz asked Sanders what he would do if he were on stage at the moment when Davidson yelled the slur.
“I would have made a joke out of it and said, “God bless you’ or something and said, ‘God is good,’” Sanders replied. “Black History Month and that happens to come out? God bless you. sir.”
It was not the only time Davidson made an outburst that night. Davidson noted this in his interview with Variety.
‘I would appreciate reports of the event explaining that I ticked perhaps 10 different offensive words on the night of the awards,’ he said in Variety. ‘The (racial slur) was one of these, and I completely understand its significance in history and in the modern world, but most articles are giving the impression I shouted one single slur on Sunday.’
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com