The family of a young Kansas City Chiefs fan has filed a lawsuit against a leftist media outlet for publishing an article that falsely smeared the 9-year-old boy as “racist.”
The “sports news” website Deadspin singled out the child for wearing a Native American headdress and face makeup in the team’s colors.
The article deceitfully suggested that the boy was wearing “blackface” which was motivated by “racism.”
The story, along with its false “racism” narrative, was picked up and parrotted by corporate media outlets around the world.
However, the story was exposed as a lie when it emerged that the boy has Native American heritage and had his face painted different colors, and not just black as the original hit piece suggested.
The boy’s parents are suing the publication’s parent company over the article, Reason reported.
According to the complaint, the unnamed 9-year-old, referred to only as H.A., “loves the Kansas City Chiefs — and he loves his family’s Chumash-Indian heritage.”
This led him to attend a November 2023 Chiefs game with “his face painted half-red and half-black, and a costume headdress — just as Chiefs fans and other avid sports fans have done for decades,” the suit notes.
H.A. was captured on camera by CBS, which was broadcasting the game nationally.
“Those few seconds provided just the opportunity for Deadspin Senior Writer Carron Phillips to, on behalf of himself and his employer Deadspin, maliciously and wantonly attack a nine-year-old boy and his parents for Phillips’ own race-drenched political agenda,” the lawsuit contends.
It goes on to claim that “Phillips and Deadspin deliberately omitted the half of H.A.’s face with red paint on it.”
A photo of H.A. was then used to accompany an article with the original headline:
“The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress.”
The article stated that H.A. had “found a way to hate black people and the Native Americans at the same time.”
Deadspin also “alleged that H.A.’s parents, Shannon and Raul, ‘taught’ H.A. ‘racism and hate’ at home.”
In December, Deadspin updated the article following a widespread backlash after the truth emerged.
The outlet removed photos and other links to outside sources that identified H.A.
Deadspin added an editor’s note that reads:
“Unfortunately the article drew attention to the fan, though our intended focus was on the NFL and its checkered history on race.
“We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan or his family.”
The family rejects the accusations made in the original Deadspin article and alleges that since the article’s publication, they have received death threats and insults, including racial slurs.
H.A.’s “test scores and grades have dropped in school” since the incident, they add.
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