CeroBlast blames "black culture" after racial slur ban, quickly backtracks

It's been a few hectic days in the fighting games community. Even without any offline tournaments happening, tension has managed to rise after bans were handed out to two of the FGC's biggest personalities.

Both Dalauan "Low Tier God" and Christina "CeroBlast" Tran were ban by independent tournament organizers such as EVO - the former for his transphobic rant on stream, and the latter for her use of a racial slur.

Cero had initially apologised for her use of the racial slur, blaming her time growing up "in NYC" as the reason she felt comfortable using it.

But just three days later CeroBlast took to her stream to make an unusual argument, shifting blame for her use of the racial slur, claiming if there is a problem of people using the "n-word", it's black people and their culture who are to blame.

"Black culture distinctively is the problem, not us. If you groom us into culture for saying that, then that's really not our fault."

The backlash was immediate, with FGC commentator and historian James Chen summing up the mood of many in a Tweet stating that Cero's "doubling down" was "indefensible".

"Saying the blame isn’t on us when we make these mistakes is absolutely wrong. It’s 100% us. I can no longer support CeroBlast."

CeroBlast took to Twitter to apologise, while also embedding the clip where she made her bizarre argument.

"I am so sorry for letting you down when I previously made an apology to do better, yet I have failed in doing so again. For the people that stood up for me and gave me another chance to do better. I really fucked up, I'm sorry for betraying your trust."

It may be too little too late though, within hours of her comments she, alongside LowTierGod, were banned from all Capcom events, and while it is unclear if her most recent comments were a factor in that decision, one thing is for sure, they certainly wouldn't have helped.