The family of the young Kansas City Chiefs fan who was criticized for his appearance at a recent game is fighting back. Holden Armenta’s parents, Shannon and Raul, have hired a law firm to compel “Deadspin,” the outlet that published the hit piece, to retract the story.
“These articles, posts on X and photos about Holden and his parents must be retracted immediately,” the law firm said in a letter. “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.”
Although the article used an image showing only the half of Armenta’s face that was painted black to substantiate the claim that he was wearing “blackface,” other images show that the other side of his face was painted red for the Chiefs. Holden Armenia is 9 years old and is of Native American ancestry.
His father is the son of a business committee member of the Santa Ynez band of Chumash Indians. Shannon Holden, the boy’s mother, wrote on Facebook after the incident that “This has nothing to do with the NFL. Also, CBS showed him multiple times and this is the photo people chose to blast to create division. He is Native American — just stop already.”
Her Facebook feed showed footage and photos from the game, such as a close-up video of her son doing the tomahawk chop, with players repeating the movement back to him. “The players even loved it!” she wrote.
Holden’s father recently told Jesse Watters of Fox News that his son was shaken by the negative attention and mischaracterization of his costume, after he had an otherwise great time supporting his favorite team.
“It’s been a lot,” he said. “It’s been a pretty crazy couple of days. I was mad, upset for him. I’m mad that he’s upset. He’s pretty devastated. I mean, he’s seen the videos and everything posted. It was his dream to get on the Jumbotron. And I’ve had family and friends call and say, ‘Oh, we saw you on Sunday night football.’ So, he’s excited. But then everything else came up.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
