British comedian London Hughes praises Black Americans for ‘standing on business’ after BAFTAs’ N-word controversy

After calling the BBC out before, the British comedian London Hughes relocated to the United States in early 2020.

As the BAFTAs and the BBC continue to navigate the fallout from an attendee with involuntary vocal tics shouting the N-word during the British Academy Film Awards, at least one Brit feels the institutions are finally getting their comeuppance — comedian London Hughes.

This week, the 36-year-old praised Black Americans for “standing on business” when it comes to racism and called out both institutions for what she described as a pattern of anti-Black missteps in a TikTok.

“What is so funny to me is that the BBC and BAFTA have not felt heat from Black people like this before, because now they’re messing with Black Americans,” she said directly to the camera.

“BBC have always played in Black people’s faces, but they were British Black people. And we don’t really have the numbers in the U.K. We’re like 2%, 3% of the country. There’s not a lot of us, and we’re not really that joined in standing on business,” she joked, adding that as British people they tend to lean into the famous saying, “Keep calm and carry on.”

“Whereas Black Americans stand on business, and anytime BAFTA in the past has played in Black people’s faces, nothing has been done about it,” she continued.

She pointed to 2020, when BAFTA failed to nominate any performers of color. While there was intense backlash at the time, Hughes said, “To live in the U.K. as a non-white person, you kind of just have to get used to white people playing in your face.”

For Hughes, who relocated to the United States in early 2020, the contrast has been stark. She said she didn’t fully grasp just how normalized certain racist behavior was in Britain until she experienced life in America, where she feels similar incidents simply “do not slide.”

“Black Americans do not play, and I kind of love them for standing on business in a way that we just can’t. We don’t have the numbers or the sensibility. Like, we’re too polite. We’re too British,” she said. “Anyway, now that the BAFTAs have caused a fuss with Black Americans … they don’t know peace.”

She added that Black Britons, including herself, have long tried to raise concerns. In July 2020, Hughes went viral after calling out the BBC when a newscaster said the N-word on air. She said the network later invited her on to “debate” the slur, an offer she declined.

“Racism is not for debate,” she said.

On Sunday, Feb. 22, as Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting onstage, attendee John Davidson, who lives with Tourette’s and experiences involuntary vocal tics, could be heard shouting the racial slur. Although the broadcast aired on a two-hour delay — and producers managed to edit out some of his other vocal tics and additional potentially controversial remarks — the slur remained in the telecast.

Shaking her head, Hughes said she would have thought the institutions had learned how to better handle such incidents, especially given the 2020 newscaster controversy.

“But clearly not,” she said. “So now me living in America as a Black Brit, I’m watching the Black Americans just hold them accountable — and I kind of love it.”