The Raiders' Black Hole Fan Club over the past year has "upped its efforts to quash stereotypes and focus attention on good works and the positive message its members want to spread," according to Kristin Bender of the OAKLAND TRIBUNE. The group "hired a public relations man, Ken Sarna of High Point Sports and Entertainment, and set up a new website: www.blackholefans.com." Club President Rob Rivera said, "We are tired of being the whipping boy of the Bay Area and people thinking we are a bunch of criminals. We are not." Bender reported the club on Sunday planned to launch the "Solidarity Campaign to Black Out Violence," an anti-violence effort that it "hopes will shed some of the negative Raider Nation stereotypes." Rivera said that the main goal is "letting people know that the Black Hole is not just a group of wild and crazy football fans -- it's also a philanthropic organization." The campaign to "'black out the violence' comes on the heels of an August melee in San Francisco where one man was savagely beaten in a Candlestick Park bathroom during a Raiders-49ers exhibition game." Rivera said the fan club wants "people to know we are sick and tired of hearing the constant negative, almost like an insulting tone, whenever it has anything to do with the Raider Nation, and we are going to do everything we can to let people in and let them know that" (OAKLAND TRIBUNE, 11/5).
