On November 26, a young boy who was cheering for the Kansas City Chiefs at an NFL game was filmed without his consent and accused of being a racist. Holden Armenta, a nine year old boy, dressed up to cheer for his favorite team and painted his face half red and half black as those are the colors of the Chiefs. He also wore a Native American headdress. He was filmed and a photo was taken of him only showing his face with black paint on it. Journalist Caron J Phillips then wrote an article criticizing and starting rumors about how this child is a racist.

According to Meditate, many people not realizing the truth started calling him and his family racists for allowing the child to go out like that to a public game, claiming Holden had offended Native American and African American communities. Those who attacked Holden and his family did understand that Phillips only showed one half of his face, not the full picture of the child. They did not know that the child is actually Native American as well.

After Phillips published his article, Holden’s parents then hired attorney Clare Locke LLP and demanded Deadspin to issue a retraction for Phillips’ story due to it not being true. Locke also said, “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.” If that doesn’t happen, they threatened to sue the website and especially sue Phillips.

After the family demanded a retraction, Phillips posted a tweet which is now deleted, calling people idiots for “treating this as some harmless act” without responding to the lawyer or any other comments. The company he works for, DeadSpin, is in pursuit of firing him as well for exploiting the child and his family.