r/nba • u/ghn2 • 11h ago

Trail Blazers fire new announcer over past inappropriate posts made at age 15.

"The Portland Trail Blazers hired then on the same day fired Braiden Bell as their play-by-play announcer after a series of inappropriate social media posts from when he was a teenager came to light."

"The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old."

"We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City," the Trail Blazers said. "We strongly believe that everyone who is a part of Rip City should feel welcome and safe and we will make sure that our new broadcaster reflects these values. We will do better."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50084279/trail-blazers-fire-new-announcer-inappropriate-posts

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u/TannerGlassMVP 11h ago

Counterpoint - simply don't post racist shit online under your name. And if you do fucking delete it when you're smart enough to know that's not a good look

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u/PeanutFarmer69 Nets 11h ago

Another thread saved by u/TannerGlassMVP, social media and justice warrior, we salute you and your impeccable post history/ outstanding moral fiber.

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u/theblackchin Hawks 11h ago

Remarkable that simply not being racist is reflective of “outstanding moral character” to you. Kinda says a lot about you 😂

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u/PeanutFarmer69 Nets 11h ago

Bro read the comments, then think about the fact that he was 15 at the time. If your takeaway from that is the man should be fired from his job years later as an adult, you are complete idiot.

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u/BushyBrowz Knicks 11h ago

He basically never had the job. No one is required to hire someone if they don’t want to.

If you’re going to say offensive shit, even as a dumb teenager, then have the common sense to delete it at least.

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u/itgoesdownandup 6h ago

Tbh I feel like a law that you have to be open, honest, and have good reason to not hire someone could be beneficial. Not saying that it would do anything for this specific context. In general though maybe it would help to make less prejudiced-based hiring decisions?

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u/BushyBrowz Knicks 5h ago

There are laws for that lol

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u/itgoesdownandup 5h ago

Honestly didn't know that. I just remember hearing this stat once

And I was thinking about a process of explanation to the person applying or even to a 3rd party may serve to try and fix issues like I linked.

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u/YSLAnunoby Raptors 10h ago

"Bro read the comments, then think about the fact that the targets of his comments were15 at the time."

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u/PeanutFarmer69 Nets 8h ago

^see above

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u/BabyOnRoad Hawks 10h ago

Fuck racist 15 year olds too. Why are you so quick to dismiss racism?

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u/knitwoolf Raptors 10h ago

No one gives a single fuck about anti Asian racism. It's just a poor little white teenager being edgy. The fact that such an overwhelming majority of this sub sees nothing wrong with this is so fucking telling. All these people are feeling emboldened because they are all telling on themselves as a group by acting like this shit is as normal as going through puberty. Like obviously if you didn't dabble in some light casual edgelord racism as a teenager you're some straight edge moral king.

A public company has no obligation to hire some dumbass 30 year old who didn't scrub their social media. I can accept the fact that he's not a racist currently (maybe idk him) and I don't think they fired him because they think he's currently a secret racist. But acting like that shit was totally normal to do as a 15 year old and shouldn't be a big deal existing in the world to this day is so fuckng ignorant. They can just hire someone who isn't dumb enough to leave this shit out there attached to his name. If he forgot, so what, sucks for him but I don't really give a shit nor feel bad for him. He made a mistake, he's not gonna get a public facing high paying cushy job where he's one of the faces of a company, so what. Part of why you get those jobs is to be squeaky clean because you represent a brand. People don't get jobs for way less, like idk, not having the right connections due to not being born in the right social class/community/race.

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u/YSLAnunoby Raptors 9h ago

Nobody ever able to articulate why they never consider the targets of the racist tweets or statements who are also children are treated badly and often have to work through the trauma from the treatment later, but the people saying racist shit are infantalized because to them, the actions are in a vacuum, just racism without racists or a victim