As a proud supporter of the Kansas City Chiefs, a 9-year-old child finds himself at the center of a controversy that risks ending up in court because the family involved believes an article published about him unfairly portrayed him.
Holden Armenta’s parents have been furious since the publication of an article by the media Deadspin and are demanding an immediate retraction or they will file a lawsuit. In his article, journalist Carron Phillips protested the young spectator’s appearance during a local Chiefs game: after seeing him wearing a feather headdress and face paint – black on one side and red on the other – he criticized the partisan with racism.
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However, Shannon Armenta wanted to make it clear that her child is First Nations, as the mother reminded on Facebook. In fact, Holden’s grandfather is part of the Chumash Community Band Council in California, as the Post Millennial newspaper clarified.
“These texts, presented on It is not enough to silently remove a post on X or invalidate the article from the Deadspin site. You must issue retractions and apologies to my customers with the same conviction and strong voice with which you vilified them.”
But whatever the outcome of the case, the damage to the child is already irreparable, according to his father Raul.
“He’s pretty devastated. He told the FOX News network that he had seen the videos and all the news related to them. It’s a lot, it’s been quite complicated days. I was angry at him because he was in a bad mood. […] He’s a 9-year-old cheering on his team. It was his dream to be on the Jumbotron [l’écran géant de l’Arrowhead Stadium, domicile des Chiefs]. And there are family members and friends who have called me to say they saw us on TV. So, I was excited. Then all this happened.”
Handling?
Some criticized Deadspin and its journalists for only depicting one side of Holden Armenta’s face (the one painted black), which therefore appeared in the profile in the image accompanying the text. Phillips particularly condemned the boy’s tomahawk gesture and believed he “hates both black people and First Nations people.”
“This is quite disrespectful to two groups at the same time,” wrote the author, whose article was viewed by many readers on X as intentionally misleading.
Furthermore, there was no response from Deadspin, contacted by the New York Post newspaper.