During Wednesday"s game between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A"s, four spectators at Fenway Park briefly unfurled a banner over the left field wall stating, "Racism Is As American As Baseball." Security guards quickly forced them to remove it and then escorted them out of the park. An anonymous group of anti-racist protestors took credit for the stunt:
"We are a group of white anti-racist protesters," the fans said in a statement to The Post. "We want to remind everyone that just as baseball is fundamental to American culture and history, so too is racism. White people need to wake up to this reality before white supremacy can truly be dismantled. We urge anyone who is interested in learning more or taking action to contact their local racial justice organization."
The protestors said that they were "not associated with any particular organization although all of us do work as organizers in various Boston groups that combat white supremacy and racism."
At the same time, another entity was also taking credit for the banner — a troll account with a history of tricking journalists and the public with fake statements intended to discredit the anti-fascist (antifa) movement. The "Boston Antifa" Twitter account quickly tweeted that the banner represented "another Boston Antifa victory."
Boston Antifa has an unfortunate history of tricking credulous journalists into believing they are a real antifa organization. A person claiming to be affiliated with Boston Antifa fanned flames by appearing on Fox News in a segment meant to convince viewers that antifa protestors are scary and violent. Last month, Boston Antifa got Independent Journal Review"s Benny Johnson to take them seriously with tweets praising flag-burners and saying things like "Free Speech Is Dead." At that time, Gizmodo and other sites pointed out that the account was clearly fake:
AntifaChecker—a project which seeks to verify real antifa groups and out fake ones (of which there are many)—claims that "as far as we know, there are zero legitimate organized Antifa groups in Boston," and told Gizmodo over Twitter DM that "fake accounts aren"t ever really "effective" to anyone with a modicum of awareness, but they"ve mostly been effective at stirring up shit with people who already hate antifa." Back in March, the duo behind the fake @AntifaBoston account were identified as trolls living in Eugene, Oregon by Eugene antifa.
[Gizmodo]
By claiming responsibility for the anti-racist banner at Fenway, Boston Antifa has once again tricked some mainstream media outlets. NBC Boston earnestly reported that "a group called Boston Antifa claimed via Twitter to be responsible for the stunt" and embedded the account"s tweet. NBC Connecticut similarly took Boston Antifa"s claims at face value. In now deleted posts, local news site Mass Live and Boston sports radio station WEEI also briefly fell for the troll account"s claims.
To be fair to everyone who was taken in, whoever is Boston Antifa does a pretty good job of appearing legit. The troll account"s "statement" about the banner sounds pretty reasonable for a couple of paragraphs, before devolving into clear parody with comparisons between Major League Baseball and Confederate monuments and demands for non-male players to make up half the league.
And after the real protestors shared a photo of the banner in another setting to prove their authenticity, Boston Antifa stole the photo and tweeted it with an inflammatory remark about "pigs":
When bad-faith actors are intent on smearing leftist protestors by impersonation, it"s more important than ever for news sites to make sure they"re spreading real news, not propaganda. A number of local news sites failed on that front in reporting on last night"s action at Fenway. Hopefully, this is the last time that Boston Antifa tricks any journalist into taking their inflammatory lies seriously.
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