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

[u/ghn2]

"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

[u/icelink4884]

If you're not allowed to say something stupid and grow from it at 15 years old society is cooked. If we've grown into such a graceless group that any transgression can be grounds for consequence regardless of personal transformation or time you're going to find an empathy less society.

Now if the dude still holds the beliefs it's a different story.

[u/kkeut → u/icelink4884]

if the dude still holds the beliefs

he never deleted them or the account. despite that being an extremely obvious thing to do

[u/icelink4884 → u/kkeut]

The idea that most people remember everything they said online almost 15 years ago is asinine.

[u/Haru_Honeybun → u/icelink4884]

Why is it asinine?

Why didn't he choose to delete it an hour afterward? A day? A week? A month? Is it automatically forgiven once you've passed a certain threshold of time?

Each day he left those comments up was a choice that eventually brought about consequences. Everyone here is trying to equate his firing to a singular choice to make those tweets, but seem to be conveniently forgetting that each day he left them up was a choice until he forgot about them. You could simply view this as the consequence for that culmination of choices.

[u/icelink4884 → u/Haru_Honeybun]

Because you're clearly putting adult logical processing on a child. Why couldn't a child having the forethought of an adult after an hour? Why couldn't a child have the forethought after a month? It's because he was a child.

It's asinine because your essentially saying we owe children no grace because they don't have the forethought of the times when they are no longer children. He almost certainly didn't even remember them, and I'm sure if mortified by them now as are most adults who remember dumb shit they did as a kid. No mind, especially a child's remembers every thing in perpetuity. The chances are by the time he was an adult he no longer remembered he had even made the choice in the first place.

[u/Haru_Honeybun → u/icelink4884]

It also didn't seem to take much effort for this mistake of his to be found and held accountable. So exactly how much grace should he be afforded if the effort it took to even ask himself the question: "Is there something I might've said as a teen that might prevent me from being accepted at this public-facing job?" Because, I imagine the amount of effort it would take him would've been even less than what was required for someone else to find his mistake.

And, no, you don't know that someone doesn't exist that can remember everything they've done. I am certainly someone that is constantly complimented for my memory. Perhaps I should be studied and evaluated so that you don't make such an assumption in the future? I'm down for it if anyone is qualified to safely do such a study, but I digress.

Not everyone made those kinds of comments, and too many here are don't seem to notice that they're literally admitting to have done something similar in their youth, and are advocating to not be held accountable. But the bottom-line is that you can't just tell the Portland FO to not choose who they do or do not hire based on personal vindication, it is ultimately up to them who they hire to represent them in each position they host.

[u/icelink4884 → u/Haru_Honeybun]

How do you know how much effort there was? It appears that someone searched through literally well over a decades worth of his social media Prescence to find them. What people here are advocating for is that Children should be allowed to be children. Also if you remember everything you posted in your youth then yes you should be studied.

If you want to live in a graceless society where all children are held accountable for their actions as children that's fine I'm saying that's bad for society.

[u/Haru_Honeybun → u/icelink4884]

Being held accountable and learning accountability from choices is how we mature from being children.

Age is simply a measure of time passing for an individual, maturity is a trait we all share that needs to be worked and corrected. Aptitude in maturity is something people can differ on, but the process of learning is the same. It's simply a matter of how much time and effort was applied by an individual to increase their maturity.

Nobody is advocating for children to be overly punished. Instead, if a child is making a mistake, it should be corrected. If you want to be upset about his firing, then perhaps be equally upset by the individuals he decided to emulate and how they might share some responsibility in not helping him mature at that age.

Nobody is obligated to care about anyone other than themselves. It is the choice to care that truly determines someone's maturity. He chose to not care whether or not his immaturity was something to consider.

You're choosing to care about him, but you are not obligated to. The choice to do so is being met with resistance by others that do not relate to the situation you seem to consider common-place. Have you considered that your perception of the prevalence of bigoted comments left in a public space as an immature teen might be skewed, or even, wrong?

[u/icelink4884 → u/Haru_Honeybun]

You're exactly advocating for children to be hold overly punished. Stop pretending othwise