The parents of a 9-year-old boy and diehard Kansas City Chiefs fan are suing the far-left sports rag Deadspin after the outlet slandered their child and then refused to retract the article.
The lawsuit follows a timeline in which Shannon and Raul Armenta gave the outlet ample time to retract the hateful words of senior writer Carron Phillips. Phillips omitted cold, hard facts when he deceptively posted a photo of their son in “blackface” when in fact the child was wearing war paint to support his team.
Phillips took a screenshot of a CBS Sports broadcast last November of Holden Armenta and wrongly accused him and his family of being racist.
Phillips neglected to show the other side of the boy’s face in the article, which would have made it clear he was wearing a headdress and his face was painted equal parts black and red.
“It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once,” Phillips wrote in November after the Chiefs played the Las Vegas Raiders.
The far-left writer added, “But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan found a way to hate black people and the native americans at the same time.”
Phillips concluded the entire family was racist, and he faced an immediate backlash over the article, which sat for days without any corrections whatsoever.
Deadspin’s editorial team eventually added several notes and updates to the article but otherwise stood by Phillips.
The Armentas are actually Native American, which added another layer of absurdity to the attack on the boy.
Is the lawsuit justified?
Deadspin inexplicably dug in, although editors later attempted to claim the article was an attack on the NFL and not a child in an update.
NewsNation reported in December that the Armentas had retained the law firm Clare Locke LLP to demand a retraction, or they would sue.
No retraction ever came, and so on Tuesday Deadspin’s parent company G/O Media Inc. was sued by the two parents, The Daily Caller reported.
The lawsuit read in part, “By selectively capturing from the CBS broadcast an image of H.A. showing only the one side of his face with black paint on it—an effort that took laser-focused precision to accomplish given how quickly the boy appeared on screen—Phillips and Deadspin deliberately omitted the half of H.A.’s face with red paint on it.”
The suit accused Deadspin and Phillips of “viciously race-baiting” for no other reason than to “generate clicks.”
Additionally, the suit claimed Holden Armenta was collateral damage for Deadspin’s hateful campaign, and he is now suffering in school from all of the negative attention.
His parents’ lawsuit stated that the negative attention will never go away and that it has stolen the boy’s childhood from him.
The lawsuit read, “Sadly, [Holden] will never know a life in which his face and name are not inextricably linked to false accusations of racist conduct. When you Google H.A.’s name, the first result states that he has ‘been accused of racism by a reporter’ for Deadspin. The second alleges that the ‘article alleged that [the Armenta’s] son, [H.A.], exhibited racist behavior[.]’ The third describes what happened to H.A. as a ‘viral hit piece.’”
Additionally, per the suit, Phillips’ article has made Raul Armenta a “pariah” at his job.
BREAKING: The parents of the defamed 9-year-old Chiefs fan are suing Deadspin.
Deadspin smeared Holden Armenta (9) and falsely accused him of blackface & racism, leaving out the half of his face painted red (Chiefs colors). His grandfather is a Native American tribesman.
The… pic.twitter.com/KZUcFoIJoF
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 7, 2024
It was not immediately clear what kind of financial relief the family is seeking, but they should be entitled to every dollar if a jury deems their case has merit.
Admittedly, it is anything but a cakewalk to work in the fast-paced world of digital publishing and to go a day without making a mistake, either large or small.
But what Phillips and Deapsin did to this child went far beyond a typographical error, a misreported fact, or an oversight in sourcing.
The far-left outlet maliciously targeted a child for being proud of both his Native American heritage and his team for its rich history celebrating that heritage.
When offered a chance to back down, the outlet’s editors refused.
Now, it appears as though a court will decide if that was a hill worth dying on.
