The wrong choice of words will tick off social media, and an NBA franchise found that out after two of its players couldn’t answer a simple question without insulting an entire gender.
The Toronto Raptors hit a hard wall after releasing a video in honor of Women’s History Month where three players spoke on why they believe in the statement “girls run the world,” resulting in an apology.
forwp-incontent-custom-banner ampforwp-incontent-ad1">According to TMZ, two Raptors players, Malachi Flynn and Precious Achiuwa, gave responses that offended some people in the brief segment.
“They are the only one that can procreate,” Flynn said in response to the question asked in the clip.
Uh…
“They birth everybody,” Achiuwa answered.
Oh no…
Scottie Barnes was also featured in the video stating his opinion: “All women are great because they are queens,” he said, which was a more pleasing answer to the question. However, the video still accumulated a load of backlash from his teammates’ statements, which were called “tone deaf” and “offensive.”
Here it is.
The Raptors wisely took down the video. On Thursday, the team offered an apology for its video spotlighting Women’s History Month.
“We’re an organization that prides itself on doing the right thing when it comes to inclusion and representation, and we made a mistake (Tuesday),” the statement from the team read, according to the Toronto Sun. “Our sincerest apologies to our players, our staff and our fans–we’ll work to do better today and every day after.”
The Raptors will host Women’s Empowerment Night on March 14 at Scotiabank Arena, celebrating and embracing women who have made contributions to sports on and off the court—beyond, one hopes, child birth.
The event is also an effort to empower more women to participate. The Raptors’ Women’s Empowerment Night is part of the team’s series of Culture Nights.