The parents of a 9-year-old boy Deadspin attempted to portray as racist, claiming his use of facepaint featuring uniform colors of the Kansas City Chiefs was an example of ‘blackface’, filed a lawsuit against the outlet Tuesday.
One can only hope the suit is for roughly eleventy billion dollars and sports fans never have to read Deadspin again.
Holden Armenta’s parents, Shannon and Raul, filed the lawsuit in Delaware Superior Court and accused the outlet of having “intentionally painted a picture of the Armenta Family as anti-Black, anti-Native American bigots who proudly engaged in the worst kind of racist conduct motivated by their family’s hatred for Black and Native Americans.”
Family Of Holden Armenta Sues Deadspin
As many readers know by now, Deadspin columnist Carron J. Phillips made a desperate attempt to cast the young Chiefs fan as a racist for wearing black and red face paint while cheering on his team during a game against the Las Vegas Raiders back in November.
Phillips’ article demanded the NFL “speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face (and) Native headdress” insisting the young boy “found a way to hate Black people and Native Americans at the same time.”
After running an image efforting to make Phillips’ point by only showing one side of Armenta’s face, alternate views surfaced showing half his face was painted black, the other half red – which happens to match an alternate jersey version of the Chiefs sold as retail. It is a jersey he clearly owns based on subsequent television appearances.
As for the Native headdress, it turns out Armenta is himself Native American.
RELATED: Georgia Congressman Taunts Deadspin After Blackface Fiasco
Holden Armenta’s parents and their lawyer threatened to take legal action in a letter sent to Deadspin in December. They specifically stated any quiet corrections would be insufficient and that the outlet “must publish your retractions and issue an apology to my clients with the same prominence and fanfare with which you defamed them.”
Instead, as the New York Post writes, they “quietly amended the story, removing the image of Holden and included an editor’s note saying the publication “regret[s] any suggestion that we were attacking” the 9-year-old boy.
It wasn’t a ‘suggestion’ you racist rubes, you did attack him.
The lawsuit contends that Holden was called a “p***y” and “motherf****r” online, as well as being threatened with death via “wood chipper” as a result of Deadspin’s false claims.
It also states the outlet and author attempted to “maliciously and wantonly attack a nine-year-old boy and his parents for Phillips’ own race-drenched political agenda.”
It’s truly astounding that a grown man like Carron Phillips thought it was okay to snitch on a 9-year-old boy in a very public manner knowing it could ruin his and his family’s lives and reputations.
It’s further amazing that the editors at Deadspin went ahead and published the column after proofreading it. They kne what they were doing to that kid. They just didn’t care.
The karma hitting those involved is truly glorious.
