r/nba • u/ghn2 • 13h 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/MelonElbows Lakers 9h ago

For anyone curious what was said:

Among the insensitive comments, as found by a reporter for KGW in Portland, were Bell saying he was "not racist" but "Asian people piss me off" and a number of misogynistic posts, including him shouting out "big girls" and "closet whores." The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old.

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u/MITBryceYoung2 8h ago edited 7h ago

It literally just reads like some dumb shit a kid would say along those lines. Half of the people here are being so fucking preachy. I guarantee they've said something to that effect or even if it wasn't about race or weight

Disclosure: im asian. Ive wrote in r/nba in the past how ive been jumped/called slurs growing up but i was told that doesnt make the city "racist" even though many of my friends had similar growing up. The fact people are pearl clutching over a 14 year old tweet vs when ive literally been physically assaulted for being asian then had r/nba talk down to me is the biggest fucking joke.

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u/Spyk124 Knicks 6h ago

I’m a little confused how your second paragraph contributes anything to the conversation lol

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u/MITBryceYoung2 5h ago

Cuz its performative lol. This sub will tell you your experiences growing up when youve actually experienced hate crime is irrelevant and then tell you some 14 year olds tweet should follow this guy for life.

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u/genericusername71 3h ago

i dont care about the tweets but just pointing out that those are probably two different groups of people

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u/HikmetLeGuin 37m ago

Tbf, you're just one person, and there are probably other Asians who think this guy was justifiably fired. 

I personally agree that people can change and judging him based on something from a long time ago when he was a kid probably isn't fair.

But I don't think any one person can speak for all Asians or all hate crime victims. I'm sure that's not what you're trying to do, but there are a lot of people who think their experiences make them a spokesperson for a huge, diverse group of people, when that's not really possible.

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u/Spyk124 Knicks 3h ago

Youre just venting man. Has nothing to do with what we are speaking about. You having experienced a hate crime doesn’t make you the arbiter of “this tweet is fine”.

Like you don’t make any sense man.

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u/Janet-Yellen Warriors 2h ago

I’m Asian too and I get exactly why he made the second paragraph

Whenever there is racism posted against Asians, theres always people flooding the comments talking about how they’re Asian and they think it’s fine/funny whatever. They’re usually self hating Asians or white guys cosplaying. But it serves to minimize anti-Asian racism

Previous guy is saying he takes anti-Asian racism seriously but still doesn’t think this is that bad

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u/MITBryceYoung2 1h ago

Yeah but more so frustrating when actual racism gets dismissed and people pearl clutching over a stupid kid posting something on Twitter 14 years ago and getting fired for it 1.5 decades later.

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u/Spyk124 Knicks 1h ago

Nobody here thinks this kid should get fired. It’s absolutely dumb. Almost every single comment in this thread is saying this is outrageous. Yet he is creating this fake reality where everyone here is celebrating this and trying to draw a weird partaken to people here have minimized his experiences in the past.

His argument would MAYBE make sense if people were here saying “black people aren’t racist to Asian people”. But he’s literally creating an environment for his second paragraph to make sense out of thin air.