NEW YORK (PNN) - February 7, 2024 - The family of the 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan accused by discredited sports blog Deadspin of wearing “blackface” filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the outlet - claiming it defamed and caused irreversible damage to the young football fan.
Holden Armenta’s parents, Shannon and Raul, alleged that Deadspin intentionally published a defamatory article, exposing “the family to a barrage of hate, including death threats.”
“The article falsely alleged that [Holden] had ‘found a way to hate black people and Native Amerikans at the same time.’ It states - without any supporting evidence whatsoever - that [Holden]’s parents, Shannon and Raul, ‘taught’ [Holden] ‘racism and hate’ at home”.
“It intentionally painted a picture of the Armenta family as anti-black, anti-Native Amerikan bigots who proudly engaged in the worst kind of racist conduct motivated by their family’s hatred for blacks and Native Amerikans.”
The lawsuit was filed following weeks of legal threats by the Armentas, who demanded that the sports news site and its senior writer Caron Phillips issue a retraction for his story headlined, The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in black face, Native headdress.
The article included a photo of the nine-year-old boy that was broadcast on CBS Sports during the Nov. 26 game against the Las Vegas Raiders, showing him standing in profile and wearing a traditional Native Amerikan headdress.
The piece did not mention, however, that the other half of the boy’s face was painted bright red, depicting two of the Chief’s team colors.
According to the Armentas, Deadspin and Phillips specifically used the grab to “maliciously and wantonly attack a nine-year-old boy and his parents for Phillips’ own race-drenched political agenda.”
Phillips stated - again, without any supporting evidence but just out of his twisted attempt to sell his blog - that the boy had managed to “disrespect two groups of people at once,” in the article, which has since been tagged with a community note on X branding it “purposely deceiving”.