Why Black People Don’t Have To Accept The Apology Or The Gaslighting

It’s still Black History Month, y’all. Which means we should be listening to our ancestors instead of white noise. Maya Angelou told us, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

John Davidson showed us who he was at the BAFTA Film Awards when he hurled the N-word, not once in some blink-and-you-missed-it slip, but three times at four Black people in the same night.

And now Black folks are supposed to accept his apology?

We’re supposed to accept that carefully worded apology that can’t even name the harm? That “if anyone was offended” statement? The one with the conditional clause tucked in nice and neat? The one that reads like linguistic choreography instead of accountability?

The kind of apology that quietly shifts the burden back onto us, as if the real question is whether we felt something, not whether he said something ugly and harmful? We’re supposed to accept an apology that confirms our initial suspicions about how deeply that word sits, how easily it surfaces from white mouths, and how quickly the instinct is to minimize rather than own it?

Nah.

Maya Angelou didn’t say believe them after they explained it away. She didn’t say believe them after the media training. She didn’t say believe them once the lawyers and publicists finish sanding down the edges.

She said believe them the first time.

Which means if we let ourselves be gaslit by that apology, and by the chorus of white folks rushing to defend him, we are betraying our own discernment. We are turning our backs on the hard-earned wisdom our ancestors handed us about how to survive in a racist country that has always tried to sweet-talk us out of our individual and collective clarity.

Because our ancestors didn’t survive the ships, the plantation, lynch mobs, redlining, segregation, and polite white apologies so that we could be confused by a manipulative conditional clause. They survived by paying attention and by believing what they saw the first time. And we dishonor that lineage when we let somebody convince us that what we heard three times didn’t mean what it meant.

Instead of centering that harm, the cultural conversation has pivoted. Suddenly the white man is the fragile one. Black anger and side-eye is the problem. Empathy is being demanded, but only in one direction. So the instinct is to neutralize the threat. Reframe racism as neurological noise. Reframe the slur as unfortunate but harmless. Reframe the apology as sufficient. Reframe Black pain and anger as overreaction.

Honesty, I don’t know about y’all, but part of me kinda wishes West Indian Archie from the movie Malcolm X and Killmonger from Wakanda had been on that stage instead of the very dignified, very composed Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan.

Because Archie would’ve adjusted his cufflinks, tilted his head, and verbally eviscerated the room with Caribbean precision before security even blinked. I can hear Archie lean forward and say, “Repeat it.” And Killmonger, who is not made for award shows, would not have been interested in neurological nuance. He would’ve leaned into that mic like, “Nah, run that back.” Sometimes I just wonder how different the “cultural conversation” would be if the energy on that stage matched the audacity in the room.

But I digress.

What’s really happening right now is not about Tourette’s. This ain’t about a neurological tic. It’s about protecting whiteness. It’s about what jumps into formation the second whiteness feels exposed. What we’re witnessing is the full machinery revving up. The sympathy. The soft language. The “let’s be fair.” The calls for compassion. The think pieces. The tone policing. The accusations of ableism. All to make sure the spotlight moves off the rot and back onto our reaction.

Because the real crisis, in their eyes, isn’t that the word came out of that white man’s mouth three times in the same night. It’s that we’re refusing to pretend like it didn’t mean anything. That’s what they’re protecting. Not a diagnosis. A narrative. The narrative that racism is rare. That it is located elsewhere in something more extreme. That it is accidental. A glitch. Not a feature and not part of who they are.

And they won’t admit it, but they see themselves in him. They see a regular white man who didn’t wake up that morning thinking he was racist. They see somebody who probably has Black friends, liberal politics, and decent manners. They see somebody who thought he was “not that kind of white person.”

So defending him becomes a way of defending themselves. Because if he can be publicly exposed like that, then so can they. If that word can live close enough to his tongue to surface three times, then maybe the problem isn’t as far away as they’d like to believe. And that possibility is what really scares them.

That’s why we’re seeing the cleanup crew humming, polished, well-practiced, and working overtime to restore white innocence. This is not about Tourette’s. This is about what whiteness will do to avoid being seen clearly.

White socialization in this country teaches white folks to preserve innocence at all costs. Being labeled “racist” is treated as a moral death sentence for some of them. So when racism surfaces, the immediate response is not repair but containment. Control the narrative. Emphasize intention. Highlight disability. Demand empathy for the perpetrator. And most importantly, move the spotlight off the Black people who were harmed.

Notice how little energy has been spent asking those four Black folks how it felt in their bodies in that moment. Notice how little attention has been given to the millions of Black viewers who heard that word and felt the familiar sting. Instead, we are being told to be compassionate. Compassion and forgiveness are being weaponized against us, as they always are, no matter what harm is done to us. Are we supposed to hug and kiss him on the cheek like that Black grandmama did recently for Donald Trump?

And in the age of Trump, this dynamic is on steroids. Trump did not invent racism, but he has mainstreamed racial grievance. He is modeling defiance when called out. He reframes accountability as persecution. He is teaching millions of white Americans that being accused of racism is worse than committing it. Nothing is racist to racists except Black folks talking about racism.

So now, when a racial slur erupts in public, the script is predictable: Step 1: Question the outrage. Step 2: Humanize the white offender. Step 3: Accuse critics of being cruel. Step 4: Demand grace. Step 5: Do a racist thing again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

What is never demanded with equal intensity is accountability. What is never centered is Black humanity. The gaslighting works like this: Black people are told that refusing to immediately absolve him makes us heartless. That naming harm is bullying or ableism. That pointing out the racial dimension is opportunistic. We are told to shrink our reaction to make room for white comfort.

White people who rush to defend Davidson may not be consciously thinking, “I want to uphold white supremacy today.” But they are defending the scaffolding that protects it: white innocence. Because if they can convince themselves that this was just a neurological glitch, then they don’t have to confront the deeper reality that anti-Blackness is still embedded in the culture, and sometimes in themselves.

So nah, Black folks are not wrong for feeling anger. Because at the end of the day, this is not complicated. We heard what we heard. We saw what we saw. And we know what three repetitions of the N-word mean.

We are not wrong for rejecting a conditional apology. We are not wrong for refusing to be shamed into silence. What happened harmed four Black people in that room and millions watching. We can acknowledge disability without erasing racial impact. We can extend nuance without surrendering truth.

The real question isn’t why Black people are upset. The real question is why so many white people are desperate to make sure we aren’t. And that desperation tells its own story.

Remember, we come from people who survived by reading the room correctly. And Maya Angelou didn’t stutter. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

And we ain’t pretending otherwise.

Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and author of “Spare The Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America” and the forthcoming “Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Children In Jim Crow America.” Read her Substack here.

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Why Black People Don’t Have To Accept The Apology Or The Gaslighting was originally published on newsone.com