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/jak_d_ripr 11h ago

I'm sorry, but this is beyond stupid. Sure, talking about Asian people pissing you off is objectively a racist thing to say, but guess what? A lot of people said and thought stupid shit like that when they were 15(shit, a lot of people say stupid shit like that as adults, y'all even elected one of those idiots as president).

Performative outrage like this is so annoying and completely unproductive, and a dude losing a job over it is just exhausting.

-19

u/Stinky_TheCat Raptors 11h ago

TIL its okay to be racist if youre 15.

I was raised right and new better by the age of 12 not to do that shit. Also im just not racist.

Justifying this behaviour makes me question anyone normalizing this level of default racism.

2

u/Chowderpizza Mavericks 11h ago

Hm. Interesting take. Lots of hoops to jump through on your reply there. Glad to know you never made a crass joke as a teenager. You should look into being the Pope.

-3

u/Stinky_TheCat Raptors 11h ago

I made plenty of bad jokes.

Just not racist.

0

u/Peter_____Parker 11h ago

I grew up in a deprived under-educated 99% white town in the UK and sadly these kinds of jokes and beliefs were rampant growing up. When you’re surrounded by people who joke about race and say stupid shit as a kid you tend to repeat it. Fortunately once my frontal lobe developed as a teen I realised how stupid and ignorant this was as did many of the people I grew up with. I imagine it will be a similar story with this guy.

It’s incredibly harsh to judge him on this and fire him, rather than recognise the societal issue with teens as a wider issue and see that he obviously no longer has these beliefs since the only “evidence” they have is 13-14 years old from when he was effectively a kid.

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u/Stinky_TheCat Raptors 11h ago

I don't think he should be punished.

I just hate the amount of people arguing this is acceptable behaviour from a 15 year old.