Sinners actress Jayme Lawson has spoken out about the incident at the BAFTA Awards in which Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo had a racial slur shouted at them while presenting on stage.
She called it a failure of genuine inclusion and taking direct aim at both BAFTA and the BBC.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter on the NAACP Image Awards red carpet, Lawson began by praising the two men at the centre of the incident.
“I’ll first say a big shout-out to Mike and Delroy; let’s continue to honour them for how they handled that in real time,” she said.
“The grace and the dignity that they exercised and the whole home team, everybody that was out there really carried themselves well.”
The slur was shouted by guest John Davidson, who has Tourette Syndrome.
But Lawson made clear she did not place the blame with Davidson himself.
“That man’s disability got exploited that night, and it led to multiple offenses,” she said. “That’s the BAFTA’s fault.”
Her argument was that inviting someone into a space without putting adequate safeguards in place is not true inclusion.
“Just because you invite someone into a space, but you don’t provide the necessary resources to keep them and everyone else in that room safe by them being there, that’s not inclusivity. That’s exploitation.”
She reserved her sharpest words for the BBC‘s decision to air the moment.
“The BBC to air what they aired is careless, and not like some haphazard accident, a real lack of care was exercised for those two Black men.”
Lawson pointed to what she described as a telling contrast: the BBC had censored other content during the same broadcast, including, she alleged, a speech by Akinola Davies Jr., director of My Father’s Shadow.
“You censored one Black man. You failed to protect two others, and our production designer, Hannah [Beachler]. You do not care for our dignity, our humanity. You want to celebrate our art, but you won’t protect [us].”
She ended on a note about the importance of spaces where Black artists feel genuinely safe and valued.
“That’s why we celebrate Sinners. That’s why we celebrate Ryan [Coogler]. That’s why we show up to the NAACP because those are spaces where we felt safe, where we feel safe.”
At the NAACP Image Awards itself, the evening included its own moment of solidarity.
Regina Hall asked the audience to pause and show appreciation for Jordan and Lindo, who received a loud round of applause.
Lindo also addressed the incident publicly for the first time when he took to the stage to present alongside Ryan Coogler, saying the support shown to him and Jordan had meant a great deal.
He described the episode as “a classic case of something that could be very negative becoming very positive.”
