The BAFTAs have us arguing over the wrong words

My initial reaction to watching Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo flinch while presenting at the 79th BAFTA Film Awards wasn’t shock or even anger. What struck me first, as they held their composure after someone in the audience shouted the N-word, was exhaustion.

In the hours and days that followed, social media boiled over with rage on behalf of the “Sinners” stars, directed at the man who shouted the slur, John Davidson, the subject of the biographical drama “I Swear.” Accompanying...