Disabilities Give Context, Not Absolution
If you are a legally independent adult, you are fully responsible for every aspect of your life.
I'm only just now hearing about this slur that was shouted and here is something that the person shouting it doesn't want us to think about:
Just because he has Tourettes DOES NOT MEAN THAT TOURETTE'S WAS THE REASON they did it. They could have done it of their own free will knowing they could use Tourette's to blame as an excuse because they would get away with it.
We'll never know
We DO know Tourettes didn't put him in that room with the full knowledge that there was a chance that word would come out of his mouth.
If I know that I'm a risk of having a seizure that day, I don't go to my friend's wedding because their wedding should not be disrupted by my medical condition. My medical accommodation is not more important than the event in which I'm there for. It's not more important than somebody else's day.
Nobody forced him to go to the event with a medical condition that he knew would likely be disruptive. It's not ableism to say "not every place is for every person. Some events are just not for you. You are not the main character today. You aren't even a consideration in this event"
He is still responsible for caring for his medical condition and the impact it has on the rest of the world. Unless he's under conservatorship, in which case every single bit of this is directed at whoever is ultimately responsible for what this man does.
It also doesn't matter what word he shouted out. He could have shouted "bananas" He could have shouted "antidisestablishmentarianism" or "6 7!", and this would still be true. It was an AVOIDABLE DISRUPTION.
Then the disruption ended up being even worse. Using the word itself may or may not have had a racist motivation. The only way will we know is by looking at this man, looking at his behavior, and looking to see if he has a history of racism. We do know that his silence and lack of action on this is still racism, so we just need to find out how far it goes.
➡️It doesn't matter why the word came out of his mouth. What matters is what he's doing about it. SOMEONE is accountable for his actions, yet NOBODY is taking responsibility.⬅️
"But he's disbled" is the equivalent of yt woman tears, and we need to acknowledge it. Millions of other people with Tourette's manage to not do what he did. It is ableist and infantilizing to everyone with that condition who manages not disrupt international televised events.
This isn't accountability, it's gaslighting. I just covered that the other day. Only this time the excuse wasn't "I didn't know", it's "I'm not responsible for my impact of this regardless of my intent".
Everyone on the planet knows that they are, so we don't legitimize that narrative.
Choke on this: It doesn't matter what your medical condition is, what your neurological condition is, etc. If you are a legally independent adult that's all there is to it. If you are allowed to sign a mortgage, get married, have a driver's license without somebody else signing off on it, then you are responsible for what you do and responsible for making the amends. Even if you didn't mean to hurt someone, you still do something about it. If you accidentally hit somebody else's car, you still have to fucking pay for the damage.
My husband has cerebral palsy and occasionally his arm will swing out in a way that if it connects with another person, it would leave a bruise. I've been bruised on several occasions, but never assaulted. If he's not in control of it, it's his cerebral palsy.
He still says he's sorry and gets me an ice pack. Even if he could not have prevented the literal impact on me, and there's nothing he could do to control it. He still feels bad that he hurt someone else because he is the type of person who actually cares about other people.
Now, if he punches someone, he's a person with cerebral palsy who chose to do harm. That is assault. Having cerebral palsy does not absolve him from the choices he makes just because he can lie and tell people that it was his CP, and not him just being a fucking asshole.
If he knows that his arms are swinging all over the place and he puts himself in the middle of a group of preschoolers and they start getting bruised? You're going to call him a fucking asshole for putting himself in that room. For putting the children at harm of behavior he know will happen that he can't control. You would call him irresponsible.
If he didn't apologize and it's like "well I have cp? Who gives a shit about those kids? They should just take it? They should just understand that I couldn't help it?" You would call him an even bigger piece of shit.
Tourette's doesn't make you not give a shit about your impact- your personality and your choices and your values do. Tourette's doesn't make you not apologize. Tourette's doesn't make you not take accountability and full responsibility and make reparations for what you did.
You don't get to hurt someone and say "I'm not responsible for any part of this".
You don't get to hurt someone and say "I am completely absolved of my contribution and the impact of this"
You don't get to hurt someone and say "well my Tourette's made me do it"
So what? Somebody else's aneurysm (which can definitely never be controlled) made them wreck their car and run over someone's cat. You still fucking say I'm sorry. You still acknowledge the pain that you caused. You still pay for damages, have consequences, and are required to make full restitution.
If we can have that standard for a fender bender, for can hold this to it, too. If you need insurance in case you're going to hurt somebody with your car, maybe you also need to put an attorney on retainer if you are at risk of being a racist piece of shit who refuses accountability and restitution unless somebody else makes you.
If you get in the car knowing that you're probably not going to be able to control it? Stay the fuck home!
We don't care what it takes. Fix the problem and handle your shit.
WE ARE DONE HOLDING YOUR DISCOMFORT FOR YOU
This person's refusal to do so is their racism. I JUST talked about it last week when the same fucking pattern went down. #StevieBees pulled some racist shit to somebody just minding their own damn business, got a lot of sympathy for themselves, then fucked off. And what did I say? The reason I was writing about it is because it's a pattern that happens all the goddamn time
... and it hasn't even been a week.
I don't know this person. I don't know if he genuinely couldn't help it or not.
I don't give a fuck if he could genuinely have helped it or not. I don't give a fuck whether or not it was his Tourette's or his racism that forced the word out of his mouth.
I give a fuck about the choices he's making
Yes, he is racist.
He is racist for making the decision to knowingly put Black people in a position to hear that word come out of a yt man's mouth.
On international TV.
He is a racist because he is not accepting accountability for what he did.
He is a racist because he assumes that he can just get away with it.
He is a racist because he's trying to just get away with it
We all know that he knew there was a chance that it could happen, and he decided that his presence there was more important than ensuring that the people in which he is there to supposedly support do not get hurt.
He had no business being putting us all at risk of this fallout of racism Black people are now dealing with because of his choices. And then to not take accountability. It doesn't matter whether or not he could help whether that word came out of his mouth. He can help everything he's done before and after that moment
He knew what he was doing then. He knows what he's been doing every single second since then.
The wrong fucking thing. He doesn't get to escape the consequences of his actions before we do. He doesn't get more sympathy than the people he hurt.
Tourettes isn't what's keeping him silent now
His racism is.
Yt Supremacy is
So we'll just get louder...
like Fidgets And Fries
Exactly. It's possible that Tourette's is an explanation for his outburst, but it is not an excuse. It was quite telling that the organisation issued an apology, but Davidson did not, skirting the issue with words like "deeply mortified" and "not a reflection of...personal beliefs".