Race baiting update

One of my personal favorites – remember the 9-year old kid that went to a Kansas City Chiefs football game with orange and black face paint? The one whom media slandered by claiming the kid was in blackface (yeah, if you looked from only one angle) – well, that may have been a pricey mistake.

The lawsuit was filed by California residents Raul Armenta Jr. and his wife, Shannon, on behalf of themselves and their son, Holden, who attended a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders last November.

According to the lawsuit, Holden, referred to in the lawsuit as “H.A.”, is a Chiefs fan who also loves his family’s Chumash-Indian heritage. He wore a Chiefs jersey to the game, with his face painted half-red and half-black, and a costume Native American headdress. Holden got the opportunity to pose with Raiders cheerleaders and was also shown briefly during the television broadcast of the game, with his red-and-black face paint visible. An Associated Press photographer also captured an image of Holden showing both sides of the boy’s painted face.

So we have a half-Indian (feather, not dot) lad who loves his team – and site Deadspin has to turn it racial.

However, using a screenshot that showed only the side of Holden’s face painted black, Deadspin writer Carron Phillips published an article the next day accusing the boy of being racist.

“The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress,” the headline on the article reads. “They’re doubling up on the racism,” a subhead reads. “Are you going to say anything, Roger Goodell?” — a reference to the NFL commissioner.

So, the family sued. Naturally Deadspin posited that it was all freedom of speech and that their worthless piece of race-baiting shit author was blameless.

On Monday, Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg denied Deadspin’s motion to dismiss the Armentas’ lawsuit, rejecting arguments that the article was opinion and thus protected from liability for defamation.

“Deadspin published an image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child, crossed the fine line protecting its speech from defamation claims,” the judge wrote.   AP

The parent company of Deadspin was sold a while back and all the staff laid off – one hopes the judge is as sympathetic to that ruse as Deadspin’s move to dismiss..

Category: "Teh Stoopid"