‘Sinners’ actress Jayme Lawson spoke openly about last weekend’s incident at the BAFTA Awards while attending the NAACP Image Awards red carpet and speaking with The Hollywood Reporter.

Lawson began by praising Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo for their composure during the moment, when a guest with Tourette Syndrome, John Davidson, shouted the N-word at them while they were presenting onstage at the British ceremony. “I’ll first say a big shout-out to Mike and Delroy; let’s continue to honor them for how they handled that in real time. The grace and the dignity that they exercised and the whole home team, everybody that was out there really carried themselves well…”

She went on to say the situation highlighted deeper issues: “I think the events this weekend exposed a couple of things. Institutionally, we still don’t understand what inclusion means. 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.”

Lawson says Davidson’s disability was mishandled in a way that resulted in harm. “That man’s disability got exploited that night, and it led to multiple offenses. That’s the BAFTA‘s fault. And then 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. And we know the BBC knows how to take care of what they care about because they censored a bunch of other words.”

She continued: “They went so far as to make sure certain things weren’t topics of conversation. They censored Akinola Davies Jr.’s speech, the director of ‘My Father’s Shadow,’ which is an amazing film, by the way. So 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. And 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.”

During the NAACP Image Awards ceremony, Regina Hall paused the show to ask the audience to “take a moment” to show support for Jordan and Lindo, prompting a loud round of applause.

Lindo later addressed the incident publicly for the first time while presenting alongside Ryan Coogler. “I’d just like to officially say, we appreciate all the support and love we have been shown in the aftermath of what happened last weekend. It means a lot to us,” he said, adding that the situation became “a classic case of something that could be very negative becoming very positive.”

MORE NEWS