By now, you’re likely aware that last month the hatemongers at Deadspin, particularly senior writer Carron J. Phillips, took aim at a nine-year-old Native American boy with accusations of racism, blackface, and cultural appropriation. But over the weekend, NewsNation reported that the boy’s family retained council and had formally demanded a retraction and apology from Deadspin and Phillips, or else they would be the subjects of a defamation lawsuit.
Late last month, Phillips lashed out at the little boy by calling him a “racist.” “It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. 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. It was as if Jon Gruden’s emails had come to life,” he viciously attacked the child.
In Phillips’ tirade, he hinted that he knew he was targeting “a kid/teenager” and scolded his parents for allowing him to wear Native American dress:
Why did the camera person give this fan the attention?
Why did the producer allow that camera angle to be aired at all?
Is that fan a kid/teenager or a young adult?
Despite their age, who taught that person that what they were wearing was appropriate?
Even after it was widely pointed out that the boy wore both black and red paint on his face, Phillips doubled down on his accusations of racism and turned up his hate. “For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse,” he wrote.
The boy’s mother, Shannon Armenta took to Facebook to address Phillips’ smear and noted that her son was, indeed, Native American. “This has nothing to do with the NFL. Also, CBS showed him multiple times and this is the photo people chose to blast to create division. He is Native American - just stop already,” she said, showing how Deadspin only showed the black side of his face at first.
And as The Post Millennial reported, the boy’s grandfather, Raul Armenta serves on the board of their tribe, the Chumash Band.
The only update to the article that Deadspin allowed was a comment from the tribe that said they disapproved of the wearing of the headdress.
It was these actions by Deadspin and Phillips that led the family to retain the services of law firm Clare Locke; the same firm that got the $787 million defamation settlement from Fox News on behalf of Dominion Voting Systems.
Their letter demanded that the offenders at Deadspin retract their articles and put out an apology with the same energy they tried to allegedly defame a nine-year-old with:
These Articles, posts on X, and photos about Holden and his parents must be retracted immediately. It is not enough to quietly remove a tweet from X or disable the article from Deadspin’s website. You must publish your retractions and issue an apology to my clients with the same prominence and fanfare with which you defamed them.
