Blazers social media team...lacking diversity?

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julius

julius

Living on the air in Cincinnati...
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Has anyone else seen this on twitter?

The team's twitter account posted a behind the scenes video of the social media aspect of the team, and the team has gotten a lot of backlash about all the "employees being white" and zero "black people".

@THE HCP whats your take?
 
All I'll say is a Laker fan from LA has the most likes on that tweet.
 
julius said:
Has anyone else seen this on twitter?

The team's twitter account posted a behind the scenes video of the social media aspect of the team, and the team has gotten a lot of backlash about all the "employees being white" and zero "black people".

@THE HCP whats your take?
Click to expand...

Gooooood grief.

Do people realize that this is basically racism because you're judging people based on the color of their skin? What if only white people applied for the jobs? (I know..... that seems impossible in one of the whitest cities in America......) what if the best candidates happened to be white?

God I hate this shit where they look at a picture and scream about diversity. It's to the point where I won't even put down my gender or race on job applications anymore.
 
Natebishop3 said:
Gooooood grief.

Do people realize that this is basically racism because you're judging people based on the color of their skin? What if only white people applied for the jobs? (I know..... that seems impossible in one of the whitest cities in America......) what if the best candidates happened to be white?

God I hate this shit where they look at a picture and scream about diversity. It's to the point where I won't even put down my gender or race on job applications anymore.
Click to expand...
I have to agree. There are a lot of white people in America. It stands to reason that occasionally there will be a group of people that are all white. That hardly means they're racist. God, don't people have anything else to do than worry about the skin color of the social media team?
 
noknobs said:
I have to agree. There are a lot of white people in America. It stands to reason that occasionally there will be a group of people that are all white. That hardly means they're racist. God, don't people have anything else to do than worry about the skin color of the social media team?
Click to expand...

What does it say to someone when the message is basically, "you're doing a great job, but you're white and that's bad. If you were another race it would be better."
 
These are the things that struck me odd (while I understand their overall point).

A: There are other people of color outside of blacks, so I found it strange that is the group that they're upset that there isn't representation.
B: There were women in the group, and I don't know if they were white or not (not arguing that "see? everything is fine!) but look at HCP. From the outside people would assume he's 100% white, but he's not. Basing an argument on a short video, without probably doing ANY background check on the people in the video, or a background check on the franchise as a whole (it might be mostly white, I don't know), is really short sighted.
C: It screams manufactured outrage, when there ARE problems of lack of diversity in the country.
 
julius said:
These are the things that struck me odd (while I understand their overall point).

A: There are other people of color outside of blacks, so I found it strange that is the group that they're upset that there isn't representation.
B: There were women in the group, and I don't know if they were white or not (not arguing that "see? everything is fine!) but look at HCP. From the outside people would assume he's 100% white, but he's not. Basing an argument on a short video, without probably doing ANY background check on the people in the video, or a background check on the franchise as a whole (it might be mostly white, I don't know), is really short sighted.
C: It screams manufactured outrage, when there ARE problems of lack of diversity in the country.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It's based solely on appearance. And diversity shouldn't just be skin color. It should be diversity of background. Diversity of thought. These people only care if they see dark faces. That's just really sad.
 
I watched the video yesterday, and when i woke up this morning i saw the posts under the video full of black people crying about why there are no black people or "nonexistent diversity" and i was like wtf is going on ?? When i watched the video i didn't even realize that there are no black people in the social media office, because who gives a shit about the color of the employees?? I mean i dont want to sound like a racist but this is completely unnecessary
 
julius said:
Has anyone else seen this on twitter?

The team's twitter account posted a behind the scenes video of the social media aspect of the team, and the team has gotten a lot of backlash about all the "employees being white" and zero "black people".

@THE HCP whats your take?
Click to expand...

LOOKS LIKE THAT TWEETERS NEVER BEEN TO PORTLAND, HOME OF THE CRACKAZ
 
julius said:
wait, hold on...they make 75K a year?? Shit, I'm in the wrong field.
Click to expand...

I just pulled a number out of my ass, but for that much visibility, I'm sure thats probably on the low end of things.

I mean those Audis don't pay for themselves.
 
Natebishop3 said:
I just find it shitty because if you're a white person and you love the NBA, your best bet to get involved with your favorite sport is front office or journalism. But now people are going to get upset about white people in a league that's comprised of 74.4% black players?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_NBA
Click to expand...

One of the comments I saw in the twitter rant, was that the white social media people were totally using black social media lingo to make money.

Unless I misunderstood the point there, I don't see how Casey and Bruce (and the rest of the group) are using black social media lingo/tools to their advantage.

If anything, they're using the fact they're dorks who like to do dorky things.
 
The people making a big deal about this clearly don't know the demographics of Oregon. How much do you want to bet that the social media team for the Hawks will have a lot more black representation simply due to the demographic breakdown in ATL?

I absolutely value diversity, but gimme a break.
 
julius said:
One of the comments I saw in the twitter rant, was that the white social media people were totally using black social media lingo to make money.

Unless I misunderstood the point there, I don't see how Casey and Bruce (and the rest of the group) are using black social media lingo/tools to their advantage.

If anything, they're using the fact they're dorks who like to do dorky things.
Click to expand...

CASEY POSTS SNEAKER PICS. THAT'S APPROPRIATING BLACK CULTURE
 
Blazers organization has plenty of diversity beyond media nerds...we've had black beat reporters..broadcasters..coaches...on and on....Chris Haynes launched his career here...Orlando Williams...Michael Holton....back in the day we had Steve Snapper Jones....Larry Miller was interim GM...Nate was head coach...there's plenty of diversity and Dame and CJ have done more on social media to put the Blazers on the map as a brand than Casey or Sarah Hecht ever did......and I like Casey's work. When you live in Scandinavia, you won't hear about this as an issue for any organization...the northern climates just attract more white residents than others generally all around the globe. I could never live in a place like Mississippi...the humidity would compost me pretty quickly
 
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Portland is nearly 80% white.

I get the general message shes trying to convey, but she’s barking up the wrong tree. Blazers studio host is black. So are their co tv and radio guys. They may also employ the only Asian assistant coach in the league, and if he isn’t the only one, he’s definitely still in the minority.

Next.
 
At my last job I'm sitting on an All-Hands meeting, and in my line of work it's largely white people. Lots of women (actually I think more women than men), but mostly white. Plus it's Portland, but the funny thing is that almost nobody is FROM Portland. They're all white people who moved here. Anyway, we're at this All Hands and someone stands up and says "when are we going to address the diversity of this program?" So I'm sitting there and I know that I am exactly the kind of person they're talking about. Straight white guy in his 30's. The director of the program says, "we're looking into addressing that."

Less than a year later I'm laid off because they needed my salary to create a diversity, equity and inclusion position that they ultimately staffed with a non-straight white guy.

So if you're me, how do you feel about that? I was good at my job. The position was still very necessary because they ended up heaping all my work on my colleague. I was eliminated in the name of diversity.
 
I wouldn't want to waste my prime earning years working for any place that would even consider laying me off for any reason....my view is you should always work in a place that would hate to lose you for any reason...all other jobs are just a treadmill...paycheck working. I'd consider myself lucky if I got laid off stuck in that only for a paycheck grind.
 
riverman said:
I wouldn't want to waste my prime earning years working for any place that would even consider laying me off for any reason....my view is you should always work in a place that would hate to lose you for any reason...all other jobs are just a treadmill...paycheck working. I'd consider myself lucky if I got laid off stuck in that only for a paycheck grind.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately people care about politics now in the workplace. They care about optics.
 
Just gonna say, this thread is basically a bunch of white guys complaining about calls for diversity.

I'm also going to say that when it comes to the "messaging" coming out of an organization, it makes sense to have people from diverse backgrounds. The RipCityMornings guys put it this way (I'm paraphrasing): "Perhaps if they'd had a person of color on the staff, that person might have noticed that the video didn't show a single person of color on the staff. Different backgrounds generally means different viewpoints, different perspectives, and different interpretations of the same thing. Diversity helps avoid blind spots, and not realizing how this video would look to people of color is a pretty big blind spot."
 
Identity politics in any other context:

“wow this is so progressive and awesome! why do republicans not like this?!”

identity politics when you’re the target:

“wow this is racist bullshit.”
 
PtldPlatypus said:
Just gonna say, this thread is basically a bunch of white guys complaining about calls for diversity.

I'm also going to say that when it comes to the "messaging" coming out of an organization, it makes sense to have people from diverse backgrounds. The RipCityMornings guys put it this way (I'm paraphrasing): "Perhaps if they'd had a person of color on the staff, that person might have noticed that the video didn't show a single person of color on the staff. Different backgrounds generally means different viewpoints, different perspectives, and different interpretations of the same thing. Diversity helps avoid blind spots, and not realizing how this video would look to people of color is a pretty big blind spot."
Click to expand...
This video is just a video...it's not the face of the franchise...Dame CJ and Nurk are the big 3.....we signed the first Spanish player in the NBA and have our introductions done in French, Bosnian, etc....I don't buy the lack of diversity view concerning the franchise....you don't gentrify a place that has always been pretty gentrified all along just because a segment of the franchise is easily sunburned. The stars of the Blazers have represented Oakland, Texas, Bosnia, France.....I think we're on top of the integration curve in Portland..and yeah....S2 is very male and white in membership ..what does that say about this place then?
 
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riverman said:
This video is just a video...it's not the face of the franchise...Dame CJ and Nurk are the big 3.....we signed the first Spanish player in the NBA and have our introductions done in French, Bosnian, etc....I don't buy the lack of diversity view concerning the franchise....you don't gentrify a place that has always been pretty gentrified all along just because a segment of the franchise is easily sunburned. The stars of the Blazers have represented Oakland, Texas, Bosnia, France.....I think we're on top of the integration curve in Portland
Click to expand...
As with any large business, it's not hard for one segment of a business to function in a completely different manner than others. The presence of diversity in the locker room doesn't obviate the need for it elsewhere.
 
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