COLUMN: Think Again – Cancel culture has gone too far

Sports broadcaster Braiden Bell found his dream job when the Portland Trail Blazers hired him as their play-by-play announcer. Later that same day, Bell had that dream job taken away from him.

That’s because a reporter for KGW in Portland, Oregon went digging through Bell’s old tweets and found several from 2012 and 2013 that were quite offensive. Specifically, Bell made a racist post about Asian people and wrote several posts that were quite misogynistic. Shortly after the reporter contacted the Trail Blazers for comment, the team announced that because they had zero tolerance for racism or sexism, Bell’s contract was being terminated immediately.

At first glance, it sounds like Bell was simply being held accountable for unacceptable comments. However, there’s an important caveat—Bell was only 15 years old at the time. Apparently, the reporter thought that it was just fine to go after Bell, who is currently a 29-year-old professional, for things he wrote when he was a teenager.

Think back to when you were a teenager. Chances are that you said or wrote things that you would find quite embarrassing today. And yet, some reporters apparently think that anything you said or did in your teenage years is fair game if it helps you get a juicy story.

The reality is that we all make mistakes, particularly when we are immature teenagers. I know that there are plenty of things that I said and did in my teens that certainly do not reflect who I am today. I suspect this is true for most other adults as well. If you don’t want to be judged based on your youthful indiscretions, don’t go after others for what they did when they were young.

As a teacher for more than 25 years, I’ve seen firsthand just how much my former students have matured over time. It gives me great pleasure when I encounter former students who are now successful in life. It would be the height of folly if I tried to cancel them today by publicizing every foolish thing they did when they were teenagers.

I’m glad that social media didn’t exist when I was a teenager. I can only imagine the stupid things I would have posted on social media had it been available at the time. Unfortunately, young people today have easy access to the internet, which means that anything they post now can be used against them years later.

Knowing this, we have a choice to make as a society. We can either target people for every foolish comment they made in their teens, or we can recognize that most people change over time and leave youthful indiscretions in the past. I think the second option is a far better choice.

When cancel culture leads reporters to go after a sports broadcaster for social media posts he made as a teenager, we know that things have gone too far. There’s a difference between holding someone accountable for recent bad behaviour and engaging in a witch hunt to see what long-forgotten things we can find in someone’s past.

Braiden Bell didn’t deserve to lose his job for what he wrote when he was 15 years old. Nor does anyone else. Going after people for what they did and said as teenagers sets a terrible precedent.

When Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” he reminded his audience not to judge others for things they are guilty of themselves. His words are just as true today as they were two thousand years ago.

Cancel culture has gone too far. It’s time we started pushing back.

Michael Zwaagstra is a teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.