The parents of a young Kansas City Chiefs fan who was singled out by the sports news website Deadspin for wearing a Native American headdress and face makeup are suing the publication's parent company over the article, Reason reported.
According to the complaint, the unnamed 9-year-old referred to as H.A. "loves the Kansas City Chiefs — and he loves his family's Chumash-Indian heritage," which 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."
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, going 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," which stated that H.A. had "found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time."
The article also "alleged that H.A.'s parents, Shannon and Raul, 'taught' H.A. 'racism and hate' at home."
Deadspin updated the article in December, removing photos and other links to outside sources that identified H.A. and 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 allege that since the article's publication, they have received death threats and insults, including racial slurs, and H.A.'s "test scores and grades have dropped in school" since the incident.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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