"In Which White Boys Adopt a Black Mask, Then Cry 'Racism' at the Chicago Sun-Times"










Will the REAL Tyrone Briggs please stand up?

(A) "Tyrone Briggs"
(B) "Internet Creatures"
(C) Washington State v. Tyrone Briggs, 55 Wn. App. 44, 776 P.2d 1347
(D) Patrick Dahl
(E) Matt Lynch
(F) Other

Talk about living down to fabricated notions of black masculinity that too often are epitomized in violent hang-outs like the American Sportsworld and rap music!

In no less than three recent entries at the anti-Jay Mariotti attack-site known as Jay The Joke, and its partner in vilification, the attack-site known as Fire The Fucktard, the administrators of these two sites have accused the Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist of “racist garbage” and “racist ravings” in his column "James' walk on the child side inexcusable" (Nov. 9)—a column “that would please David Duke to no end,” as one of these attack-sites put it.

According to a running commentary at the latter attack-site ("Fucktard Slanders LeBron James," Nov. 9), it is Jay Mariotti's belief that "you gotta keep all them field hands working in harmony," that "You just have to know how to handle 'em properly," and that "Two dozen lashes with the bullwhip" might be the best way to do it. For Mariotti “needs to show this young buck who is in charge,” we read. And if there’s no bullwhip handy? “Oh fine then, do away with that bullwhip. Just string that boy [LeBron James] up right now on that oak tree over yonder. Yes, that one so nice and high for all the other NBA field hands to get a good gawk at. And don't forget to tar and feather that boy first.”

And so on. Quite typically, as these attack-sites go.

“Please, somebody tell us what the fuck is going on here and where the hell was the editor before this made it to print?”

Okay. Let’s tell everybody what’s really going on here.

In the sordid history of the Jay The Joke attack-site, some person or persons has been posting comments to the site since the early summer months (late June or early July) under the pseudonym "Tyrone Briggs." (Now defunct.)

During the summer months (roughly), whenever comments were posted to the Jay The Joke attack-site under this pseudonym, the comments would be accompanied by the photographic image of two young, tough-looking black men—the intended messages being that "Tyrone Briggs" was one of the two young black men in the photo, and that "Tyrone Briggs" was one tough dude.

Then in August, and using the very same "Tyrone Briggs" pseudonym and photographic image, this person or persons also created a separate attack-site with the title Calling Out Michael Miner. (Also now defunct.—Anyone interested in learning how it came to be that The Reader's Michael Miner found himself in the crosshairs of these attack-sites should read his "Jay the Joke Isn't Funny Anymore," Aug. 18.)

When the original Jay The Joke attack-site was withdrawn from circulation on October 6 or October 7, and replaced by the newer version (for more on this, see my "In Which Jay Mariotti Became the Target of an Internet-Based Attack-Site," Oct. 23), the Calling Out Michael Miner attack-site also was withdrawn from circulation. A reasonable inference would be that the same administrators behind the old and new Jay The Joke attack-sites also were behind the Calling Out Michael Miner attack-site. Otherwise, both sites would not have been pulled down at the same time.

(Be sure to keep this point in mind. As the Jay The Joke attack-site goes, so goes the pseudonym “Tyrone Briggs” and the great thoughts attributed to him.)

But although a new Jay The Joke attack-site succeeded the old one, neither the Calling Out Michael Miner attack-site nor its pseudonymous administrator, "Tyrone Briggs," was converted to a new site. Instead, the old "Tyrone Briggs" was deleted (along with the photographic image of the two young black men), and succeeded by a new “Tyrone Briggs.” (Though a pseudonym nonetheless.) And this new “Tyrone Briggs,” in turn, became the administrator (allegedly, given the fact that it is a pseudonym) of the new Fire The Fucktard attack-site.

Having recounted this brief history, three questions (at least—more some other time) come to mind.

(1) Who has been the person or persons using the pseudonym “Tyrone Briggs” over the past several months to carry out attacks on the Chicago Sun-Times’s Jay Mariotti, and other people deemed insufficiently contemptuous towards Mr. Mariotti as they themselves are?

(2) Why did this person or persons adopt the false identity of a young black man to carry out these attacks?

(3) More to the point, doesn’t anybody recognize the contradiction in the fact that the same white boys behind the Jay The Joke attack-site (i.e., Patrick Dahl, Matt Lynch, and whoever else runs it besides them) have donned the mask of “Tyrone Briggs” to accuse Mr. Mariotti of “racism” over his sympathetic column about the predicaments of superstardom facing the Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James?

In Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial (St. Martin's Press, 1991), Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham’s case studies of false memory, mistaken identity, and the U.S. legal system, the authors devoted their closing chapter to the REAL Tyrone Briggs, a young black man—a teenager, actually—falsely accused of a series of assaults and attempted rapes in the Seattle area in 1986, whose case turned out to be a landmark in the debunking of victim misidentification, prosecutorial misconduct, coached witnesses, and juror prejudices:


There are two separate worlds here, containing two separate, contradictory truths. There is the world of Tyrone and his family,…and all the others who believe with all their hearts that Tyrone is innocent. And there’s the world of the victims and their families, the prosecutors and the police who believe equally firmly that Tyrone is guilty. Each world gathers into itself its supporters, who believe just as fiercely in their version of the “truth.”


If we replace the Loftus – Ketcham study’s guiding notion of false memory with that of false identity (mutatis mutandis), we should be able to understand the MO of the attack-sites that have been established to vilify the Chicago Sun-Times's Jay Mariotti.

I would only amend their statement to read: Two separate worlds, but one truth.

If I were the white boys now hurling the accusation of “racism” at the Chicago Sun-Times and its sports columnist, I sure as hell wouldn’t be hiding behind the mask of the black man Tyrone Briggs to do it.


- Robert Bonner, "In Which White Boys Adopt a Black Mask, Then Cry 'Racism' at the Chicago Sun-Times," Wake Up, Sports Fans, November 9, 2006
- Search Engine for Washington State Supreme and Appellate Court Decisions. Once there, plug in 55 Wn. App. 44, 776 P.2d 1347. This search will take you to an online copy of the July 31, 1989, Washington State Court of Appeals' reversal of the wrongful conviction of Tyrone Briggs, and its order of a new trial.

- Jay Mariotti, "James' walk on the child side inexcusable," Chicago Sun-Times, November 9, 2006

- Matt Lynch, "In Which We Don’t Like LeBron When He’s Angry," Jay The Joke, November 9, 2006
- "Fucktard Slanders LeBron James," November 9, 2006
- "Fucktard's New Flag," November 9, 2006


(Updated Friday, November 17, 2006): Some time between the November 9 date on which I posted the current blog, and today, Friday, November 17, the person or persons behind the original Jay The Joke weblog who, last summer, also created the Blogger-based Internet pseudonym "Tyrone Briggs," has re-created the Blogger-based "Tyrone Briggs" pseudonym once again, after more than one month's absence.

The obvious reason for re-creating the Blogger-based "Tyrone Briggs" is to re-create the hoax that the person or persons posting under this pseudonym is someone other than, and independent from, the Jay The Joke administrators.

I am not buying it. And I hope that none of you is so easily conned, either.

As any student of the Internet knows, the Internet enables individuals to adopt all sorts of phony identities. But the MO of the Jay The Joke weblog in relation to the MO of the Fire The Fucktard weblog is clearly that of the “Good Cop” to the “Bad Cop,” with the latter weblog and the "Tyrone Briggs" pseudonym serving as the site and pseudonym for which no holds are barred, while the former weblog now tries to maintain a more “professional” style.

Once again, I am not buying it. And I hope that none of you are, either.

Keep in mind the crucial fact that when the original Jay The Joke weblog was withdrawn from the web on October 6 or 7 and converted to a new operating system, a separate weblog that allegedly had been maintained under this same "Tyrone Briggs" also was withdrawn from the web. This old weblog, which had the title Calling Out Michael Miner, existed for no reason other than to attack people who had written critically about the Jay The Joke weblog (e.g., The Reader’s Hot Type columnist, Michael Miner).

Furthermore, in the comments sections both of the old and the new Jay The Joke weblogs, the name “Tyrone Briggs” has always been a pseudonym used by Jay The Joke’s administrators to post comments that the administrators prefer to express in someone else’s voice--a practice they've contrinued through the present day.

Since October 6 or 7, we still find the exact same MO at the new Jay The Joke weblog, as well as Fire The Fucktard.

Finally, I find the November 12 response to this blog by the person or persons posting to the Fire The Fucktard weblog under the name “Tyrone Briggs” to be an ostentatious bluff. ("A Response to Fucktard Minion Robert Bonner.")

But nothing more.

I for one am not falling for this con. And I hope that none of you falls for it, either.

As the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported after YouTube's "Lonelygirl15" was outted in September (YouTube's 16-year-old celebrity "Bree" turned out to be a 19-year-old actress from New Zealand whose real name is Jessica Lee Rose):


"The great thing about the Internet is that anyone, even a lonely 16-year-old girl, can record her thoughts and draw a big following. The maddening thing about the Internet is that she might not be lonely or 16."


Just as the real author(s) of the Fire The Fucktard attack-site might not be a young, hard-ass, Hip-Hop black man named "Tyrone Briggs."

But a couple of white boys whose names are Patrick Dahl and Matt Lynch.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.