On Tuesday, the story about Deadspin writer Carron J. Phillips’s attempt to cancel a child at a Kansas City Chiefs game for being racist went viral, ending with Phillips and Deadspin being embarrassed completely when it was discovered that the kid wasn’t wearing blackface as they claimed. Not only that, Phillips claimed the child was double-racist because he was wearing an Indian headdress.
As it turns out the child’s face was painted in the Chiefs colors of black and red, and the headdress he was wearing was actually appropriate, not just for the game, but because the child is Native American. Phillips deleted a post where he doubled down on his attack on the child, but can still be seen attacking people calling him out on X.
Deadspin said Holden was wearing black face: He wasn’t.
Deadspin said Holden was offending Native Americans: Holden is Native American.
Deadspin said Holden was offending black people: Black players saw Holden and joined in with his tomahawk chop.
I hope Holden is ready for a… pic.twitter.com/b8pselT3rz
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 29, 2023
(READ: Embarrassing Slander of Young KC Chiefs Fan Gets Better…for the Kid – and FAR Worse for Deadspin)
I thought to write an article about this yesterday, but one thing kept bothering me. Normally, I like to peak behind the curtain and figure out why someone on the left would go so far as to do something stupid and awful, especially in this case.
As I was reading the Deadspin article on my Rumble livestream “Brandon Morse Is a Brand Risk”, an idea started to form that I was able to fully realize while I was on the air. The answer was in the Deadspin article, it was just overlooked because of the egregious attack on a child.
Here’s the segment of the Deadspin article that nails down the likely reason Deadspin and Phillips went all in on this little Chiefs fan:
The answers to all of those questions lead back to the NFL. While it isn’t the league’s responsibility to stop racism and hate from being taught in the home, they are a league that has relentlessly participated in prejudice. If the NFL had outlawed the chop at Chiefs games and been more aggressive in changing the team’s name, then we wouldn’t be here.
There’s no place for a franchise to be called the “Chiefs” in a league that’s already eradicated “Redskins.”
There it is. Plain as day.
All signs point to the fact that Phillips, Deadspin, and by extension, its parent company G/O Media, would have been able to say that it was their article that lit the fuse that would eventually lead to the destruction of the Kansas City Chiefs’ name.
If he was successful, Phillips would have had some serious clout as the guy who strongarmed Roger Goodell into subsequently strongarming Clark Hunt, the owner of the Chiefs, into ditching this supposedly “racist” name and mocking culture at Arrowhead Stadium, and renaming the team to something far less “offensive.”
It happened to the Washington Redskins, and Phillips was likely hoping for the same result by setting off a social justice culture bomb under the Chiefs. In his Deadspin article, Phillips even had a Native American leftist activist accuse the team of “mascotting” Native Americans. Phillips called Gooddell out by name and used a quote by an NFL Senior VP of “social responsibility” to try to put some heat on his claim:
“We are committed to Inspire Change and the social justice work that inspires change for the long-term,” Anna Isaacson, NFL senior vice president of social responsibility, told The Associated Press back in 2021. This was the time when the league was beginning to allow players to wear decals on their helmets that read Stop Hate, Black Lives Matter, Inspire Change, and Say Their Stories, as part of the NFL’s “social justice initiatives.”
Only, they picked the wrong target and the attack was sloppy to boot.
Not only was the kid not wearing blackface, but he was of the very culture that Phillips and Deadspin claimed he was mocking. Now Phillips, Deadspin, and G/O Media are wide open for a nice fat lawsuit and the Chiefs’ name is probably more secure in its staying power than it was before.
Whatever happens from here, Deadspin’s credibility is forever tarnished and Phillips will wear this “L” for the rest of his career. Not just because he got something so wrong and failed in his attempt to force change through guilt and intimidation, but because he attacked a child who was innocently cheering on his favorite football team to do it.
My greatest hope, at this point, is that the child is protected from the media tsunami surrounding him and that he can go on being an innocent little boy who loves football.
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