After almost two years, the Red Sox are taking down their 254-foot Black Lives Matter billboard that has been stationed behind Fenway Park facing the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Bekah Salwasser, the Sox’ executive vice president of social impact and executive director of the Red Sox Foundation, told the Herald on Thursday that the organization has been proud of its support for the BLM movement, but now wants to use that signage to promote the 20th anniversary of the foundation. The change of billboards will take place in the next couple of days.

“We felt it very important to take advantage of one of the most prominent tools this organization has, which is this billboard, to really shed a light on and celebrate the 20 years of incredible impact the Red Sox Foundation has had across New England,” Salwasser said.
— Boston Herald, 3/24/22

Don’t get me started again on the unfortunate impact and imposition of halfricans who are absorbed into legitimate businesses to create “social impact” through division they magnify to justify their existence. Yes, the Red Sox have unruly fans but so does a lot of other teams and while racism shouldn’t be tolerated, at least there aren’t the assaults, knifings, shootings and the people falling to their deaths from upper decks we hear about happening in other stadiums around the nation.

Call me old fashioned but as a lifelong Red Sox fan who starting at age 8, walked down Massachusetts Avenue from Central Square, across the bridge to Kenmore Square (okay, if I had an additional quarter, I’d take the T), and went to day and night games when bleacher seats cost $1, I was only interested in watching the team compete and ultimately beat the Yankees. I went to dozens of games during my youth and never encountered a feeling I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t a black life that mattered. I was (and still am) a loyal Red Sox fan.

So, why the need to “remove” the sign from the side of the stadium? Could it be because Black Lives Matter has been proven to be the political sham many understood from inception?

In July 2020, with the nation mourning the death of George Floyd, Red Sox decision makers thought they were joining an important movement.

Hmm… they “thought”. Who did they ask, Monica Cannon-Grant?

Team president Sam Kennedy announced a call to action as he asked members of the Sox front office and fans alike to work toward diversity inclusion and racial justice in their communities. To show their support, the Red Sox revealed the billboard, later to be joined by a large banner in the Red Sox bleachers and a permanent BLM sign in the Sox outfield.

Never could they have expected some of their fans to turn on them so quickly.

Sorry, unless you have winning championships down to a science, maybe that’s where members of the Sox front office should have been spending their paid time addressing. Actual baseball “fans”, as opposed to social justice activists, seemed to understand that.

Despite an overflowing show of support from a majority of their fanbase, the organization was also flooded with negative phone calls from what it views as a “vocal minority” of folks who didn’t like the sign.

“No one could predict the future; we certainly couldn’t,” Salwasser said. “So no, we had no idea what really to expect.

Arrogant liberals assume everyone thinks like them and are usually horrified, thus caught off guard, by the slightest pushback.

“I’ll be honest, it was a really challenging time for our organization when that board went up. Because as often happens, there is a loud vocal minority that expressed discontent with the board. And that was regrettable with us because we felt so proud when that billboard went up. We were taken aback by the negative feedback. But again, as oftentimes happens, there’s a very loud, vocal minority that likes to make their feelings known.

Project much?

Unfortunately a lot of our staff had to bear the brunt of some of those really tough conversations from those fans.”

Given current ticket prices, the staff was probably overpaid for the “brunt” they had to bear.

As usual, it was all about them, their “social” impact, or lack thereof. Between the pandemic and the “Summer of Love”, the Red Sox finished the abbreviated 2020 season with an abysmal 24 wins and 36 losses. But having visible support for Black Lives Matter was more important. Ask any fan who may have missed a few innings, trying to get home after being stuck in a spontaneous traffic disruption by BLM activists who demanded commuters check their privilege.

“I also think it’s important to note that last season we also had permanent signage of Black Lives Matter up in the park. So the statement isn’t going away. That’s not changing at all. That will stay permanently affixed to the interior of Fenway Park for all our fans of Red Sox nation to see. We’re proud of that.”

And while the billboard is coming down, the organization said its commitment to racial justice won’t change.

So why are the Red Sox visually distancing themselves from Black Lives Matter?

BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ million-dollar real estate buying binge
Concerns Raised Over $60 Million in Black Lives Matter Funds
‘The BLM Foundation’ Raised Millions. Not Affiliated With The BLM Movement
CA threatens to hold BLM’s leaders personally liable over missing financial records
Where Did All the Money Shaun King Raised for Black Lives Go?

Aside from the greed of their grifter founder and supporters, they’ve been exposed as yet another liberal entity using willing black people (whom the left would call “house negroes”) for political and personal gain.

The Washington Examiner revealed last week that prominent Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and former White House political director Minyon Moore, both longtime Clinton allies, have taken on key leadership roles with BLM. Filings from the organization show Elias represents the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation through Elias Law Group, and Moore, who is also advising President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court confirmation team, is now a member of BLM’s board of directors.

The reason this matters is twofold.

First, it proves BLM is directly engaging known Democratic political operatives, undermining its claim that it functions as a charity. And second, it shows Democrats are actively trying to direct BLM and help it deal with the financial transparency scandal it finds itself in.
— Washington Examiner, 2/24/22

Actually threefold: Elias and Moore smell, and can attach themselves to, a lot of political money.

Sorry, Bekah. The socially-compliant in Back Bay and along the affluent Route 9 corridor may accept this on face value but you can only count on WGBH consumers who’ve never watched a game on television to buy the bullshit.

As for the Red Sox organization, it would be sad to think that winning is not one of the priorities of the franchise and instead infecting the product with hires from nonprofits with social agendas that have little to do with wins and losses.

Boston fans are often called the most intelligent in all of sports. Unfortunately, the socially arrogant in the Red Sox front office don’t appear to agree.

Monica Cannon-Grant is the founder of the non-profit Violence in Boston, a campaign organizer for Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, District Attorney Rachael Rollins, and Senatorial candidate Joe Kennedy, and is arguably the face of the black lives matter movement in Boston. She’s been legitimized in the media, having written several op-eds for the Boston Globe, and has taken part in interviews on several stations including public television WGBH. She’s organized several large protests in Boston with crowds over 50,000 in size, including a 2017 anti-free speech rally, and numerous BLM protests in Boston since the killing of George Floyd.

Congresswoman Pressley is facing a challenge in November from Republican Rayla Campbell, a black mother of three from Randoph. Cannon-Grant responded by posting a viciously racist 30 minute video on Facebook, which she has since removed.
— TurtleBoy Daily News, 7/17/20

Sit back. You can see why….

Meanwhile, the damage has been done.

A Black Republican who’s challenging U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley says she’s fled her Randolph home in fear for her life after a Boston activist’s video went viral questioning the woman’s Blackness and making crude references to her sex with her white husband.

“This is racism to the ultimate level. … Racism is racism no matter where it comes from,” Rayla Campbell, the Randolph Republican, told the Herald on Tuesday. “I was horrified and absolutely terrified. I had to uproot my family and just stay elsewhere.”

In a Friday video widely disseminated by the blog Turtleboy over the weekend, Roxbury community activist Monica Cannon-Grant repeatedly called Campbell a “heifer” and made frequent crude references to Campbell’s white husband. Rollins has quickly distanced herself from the video, telling the Herald and Campbell herself that the attacks on Campbell’s family life are deeply inappropriate.
— Boston Herald, 7/21/20

As usual, the distancing from the words only come after they were made public.

As Turtle Boy also meticulously documented, Cannon-Grant has received monetary and community support from a who’s-who of Boston’s political, media, social, and business elite including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Altman Vilandrie & Company, The Network/La Red, Alpert Cohen Charitable Fund, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Shell Oil Company Foundation, Boston Circus Guild, Strand Therapeutics Inc., Trillium Asset Management LLC, Lyft, Fidelity Investments, and more.

But perhaps the most suspicious thing she’s done to date happened last year after a shooting took place at the Warren Garden housing projects where she lives with her husband and 6 kids.

Although the shooting had absolutely nothing to do with her, Monica made it sound to her followers that she was targeted, and thus needed to move because she was unsafe living there. Two separate fundraisers raised close to $10,000 for her moving expenses and hotel rooms where she would stay until they could find a place to live.

Knowing liberals as we do, they probably won’t throw this Boston racist opportunist under the bus, in fact they’ll find a way to support her and succumb to the woke.

Bostonians of the Year are selected by the editors of the Globe Magazine. Send comments to magazine@globe.com

They know what they’ll be called if they don’t.

UPDATE

A federal grand jury has indicted Monica Cannon-Grant, a high-profile local activist in Boston’s racial justice movement, and her husband on allegations they defrauded donors of the nonprofit they founded, Violence In Boston; committed unemployment fraud; and lied to a mortgage lender, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Cannon-Grant, 41, and Clark Grant, 38, were charged in an 18-count indictment alleging the couple spent financial donations to the nonprofit on themselves, using the cash to pay for hotel reservations, gas, restaurant meals, food deliveries, nail salon services, and personal travel, while concealing their transactions from bookkeepers, directors, and financial auditors.

The two also received roughly $100,000 in unemployment benefits they were not entitled to, officials allege.

Both were charged with two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of conspiracy, 13 counts of wire fraud, and one count of making false statements to a mortgage lending business, according to Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office.
— Boston.com, 3/15/22

The indictment alleges the couple used the funds to pay for personal expenses including, hotels, car rentals, auto repairs, restaurant meals, nail salons and personal travel, prosecutors said.

Cannon-Grant also allegedly paid herself $2,700-a-week and treated herself to a $450,000 five-bed house in Taunton, Massachusetts, last year. She is accused of using much of the $1 million raised by her nonprofit Violence in Boston for good causes. Her salary jumped from $25,000 in 2020 to $170,000 in 2021.
— Daily Mail, 3/15/22

The arrogant almost always go too far.

FYI — Bob was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts

UPDATE

Monica Cannon-Grant, the founder of the nonprofit Violence in Boston, plans to plead guilty to federal charges of defrauding people who donated to her organization. In a one-page document filed in federal court in Boston on Friday, Canon-Grant requested a change of plea hearing.

Cannon-Grant faces a 27-count indictment on charges including wire fraud, mail fraud, making false statements, and filing false tax returns, among other offenses.
— Fox 25, Boston, 9/12/25

Justice may be slow but it does eventually catch up.

UPDATE

“Bostonian of the Year” ordered to pay back $224K she stole from her own nonprofit
Monica Cannon-Grant was ordered Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to forfeit every dollar she made from her crimes — from diverting donations from her own nonprofit, collecting fraudulent pandemic unemployment benefits, and pocketing rental assistance she wasn’t entitled to.

The forfeiture amount includes roughly $181,000 in diverted donations from Violence in Boston Inc., the nonprofit she founded, more than $33,000 in fraudulent pandemic unemployment benefits, and about $12,600 in rental assistance benefits, according to a copy of the court order. That’s on top of the $106,000 in restitution Kelley already ordered at Cannon-Grant’s sentencing in January, when the judge gave her four years of probation, six months of home detention, and 100 hours of community service — no prison time, despite prosecutors requesting 18 months behind bars.
— Mass Daily News, 3/23/26

Screaming racism won’t work this time.