Jamie Borthwick is an uncommonly fine young actor who, frankly, is far too good for the increasingly strained and schlocky scripts that are churned out to him and the other residents of Albert Square. If you haven’t heard of him, then all you need to know is that he’s been a major character in EastEnders for the last two decades, playing Jay Brown, until very recently the manager of a (much in demand) funeral home in Walford. But no longer: Borthwick has been axed from the show after he used a slur once commonly used against disabled people, but in this occasion aimed at the people of Blackpool in general. The video, filmed backstage in the seaside town earlier this year, shows Borthwick using the term ‘mongoloids’. I’m disabled – and I’m appalled. Not by Borthwick’s language, bad though that is, but by the decision to give him the boot.
I just roll my malfunctioning eyes and gently explain that these terms aren’t really used anymore
Borthwick apologised once it became clear that his remarks had been filmed on someone’s phone and released online. A suspension from EastEnders ensued. It wasn’t enough. ‘We can confirm that Jamie Borthwick will not be returning to EastEnders,’ a BBC spokesman said this week.
As a disabled person, I’m as familiar as anyone with the types of insults and pejoratives that able-bodied people lob around, albeit with perhaps slightly less gleeful abandon than was the case in my youth.
As a severely visually impaired person with the conditions of albinism and nystagmus, I’ve been called ‘blindie’, ‘red eyes’ and even a ‘bog eyed cripple’; the last being lobbed at me by the former partner of my fiancée just last year.
Sometimes I’ve laughed at the comments aimed at me. Sometimes I’ve forcefully argued back. But, more often than not, I just roll my malfunctioning eyes and gently explain that these terms aren’t really used anymore and that the person uttering these supposed witticism is embarrassing themselves far more than they’re insulting me by persisting with them.
I’m fascinated by the language and semantics of disability and, of course, the word Borthwick used is a hideous one, straight out of a 1990s school playground.
Therein lies the point. Enormous progress has been made since my teenager years when it comes to reforming the definitions of what’s acceptable and what absolutely is not when it comes to how we talk about disability.
But we’re now deep into a new era; one non-disabled people are forcefully imposing their own norms and values onto what they believe disabled people should be offended and appalled by.
Two crucial things are being forgotten amid the hysterical tabloid opprobrium that has surrounded Borthwick’s sacking.
Firstly, the overwhelming majority of people with long-term disabilities have very thick skins. We’ve seen it all, heard it all, and we’re usually able to robustly defend ourselves against poor choices of language. I personally do not need an (inevitably able bodied) member of the woke brigade fighting my battles for me and sacking people in the public eye for, well what exactly? My own protection? If I want that from the BBC, then I promise I’ll let them know.
More insidiously, this ‘sack first, never explore further’ culture is creating a situation where able bodied people don’t feel they can discuss disability at all, for fear of accidently causing offence.
I’ve been told, again by an able-bodied person, that I shouldn’t call myself an albino. ‘It’s called albinism Rob, I think that’s the term you should use’, were the exact words laid on me by a member of BBC staff before I appeared on a radio programme.
My retort was that it’s my disability and I’ll call it whatever the hell I like. I already call my white stick ‘Chris Martin’, mainly because it’s also thin, white and annoying. So if I want to call my disability, ‘Thora Hird’ or ‘Chipping Norton’ then I will.
This constant moving of the goalposts as to what is and isn’t ‘appropriate language’ is doing nothing other than stopping able-bodied people feeling they can breach the topic at all, for fear of getting themselves cancelled, either personally or professionally by their peer group or their employers. How can anything change for the better within this febrile atmosphere of accusation, hysteria and cancellation?
Of course, Borthwick should have learnt quite some time ago that the word he used backstage in Blackpool is wrong. But his sacking does nothing to educate people and everything to terrify people into thinking one inappropriate piece of verbal behaviour can destroy their career and much of the rest of their life. This doesn’t help people think about their attitudes. It encourages them to either double down, or never think at all.
Was Borthwick beating up disabled people with a cricket bat? Was he lambasting people with disabilities online? No. He made one, alleged, use of an outdated pejorative word. It was wrong. But better communication between able bodied and disabled communities cannot happen through tyranny and fear.
A quiet word from a disabled person can do a lot more to create an educated society than a wildly over the top, and strangely gleeful, public shaming.
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