Holden Armenta in face-paint and headdress,
on his way to the Superbowl. Click for video.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Though this will the third time in less than a week I have devoted my column to this story, this update today is absolutely essential, because it might be the happiest and most hopeful story I have reported in years.

The screen capture to the right was taken from a short X video posted by one of the two podcasters who had started a GiveSendGo campaign to send Holden Armenta to the Super Bowl. Armenta had been slandered falsely by Deadspin senior writer Carron Phillips, who claimed the boy was a racist because he attended a Kansas City Chiefs game in blackface, when all the boy did was put on facepaint of the team’s colors to cheer them on, like any ordinary 9-year-old boy. Worse, both that news outlet and Phillips compounded the false slander by refusing to correct their error when it was clearly documented it was false. That defiance was made even more disgusting when it was revealed that Armenta and his family are actually American Indians themselves.

Even though the fund-raising campaign fell short of its $22,000 goal, raising about half that, it appears that the podcasters decided to take Holden and his family to the game anyway. Kudos to them!

The video of Holden is joyous in numerous ways. First, you can see that the harm the slanderous story caused him — as outlined in horrific detail in his parents’ lawsuit [pdf] against Deadspin — has apparently mostly subsided. The boy is clearly excited about going to the game, and shows no fear of further media attacks for doing so.

Second, he is once again in facepaint and wearing the Indian headress he wore previously! According to his family, he had attended that earlier Kansas City Chiefs game in facepaint wearing the headress not only because he wanted to cheer his team, he also very much wanted to get on television. In this he succeeded, to his joy, only to have that joy shattered viciously by that despicable leftist reporter. That he is once again in costume for the Super Bowl means his parents have helped him overcome any fear he might have had, and he is once again an ordinary little boy, cheering on his favorite team with that added spark of originality.

Third, we must underline the fact that Holden knows the game of football. In the clip he predicts that his Kansas City Chiefs would win the Super Bowl 31 to 28. The Chiefs not only won as Holden predicted, the final score, 25 to 22 makes his prediction better than some of the most respected sports prognosticators in the world. Go Holden!

Fourth, Holden is not the only one in this group in facepaint and an Indian headdress. Not only have these kind people done everything they can for the boy, they are also making a statement to the bigots and slanderers and blacklisters on the left: We will not submit. We will not bow. We will be free and do what we wish, ignoring your slanderous lies against us. And to prove it, they came to the Super Bowl in costume, and are proudly broadcasting that fact to the world.

Finally, and maybe the most important, we must express deep respect and congratulations to Holden’s parents. They have not let this disgusting incident fester in their son, but instead have addressed the issue boldly. Instead of wilting in fear against a modern media two-minute hate against themselves and their child, they have instead reacted fearlessly and defiantly, while gently and carefully teaching this young boy how to face his fears and hurts and overcome them.

This is what parents must always do, especially in this time of blacklisting and hate.

This moral victory for Holden Armenta at the Super Bowl however is not the end of this story. The lawsuit continues, and it is essential the Armenta family win, and win big. For too long the leftist media and its shallow-minded and hate-filled journalists have found they could publish any lies and any slanders they wanted, for political reasons, and get away with it. Because of this lack of consequences they now lie and slander routinely about almost all major political news stories, defaming Republican politicans and ordinary conservatives everywhere with falsehoods. They have become worst than Nazi or Soviet propagandists, because unlike the journalists in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, these American journalists do not live in a dictatorship where defiance leads to imprisonment. Instead, they have become Democratic Party and leftist propagandists voluntarily, in a most shameful manner.

Deadspin and its reporter Carron Phillips are poster childs for this bankrupt press. Both must suffer for their reprehensible lies. The outlet should go bankrupt, and Phillips should find more appropriate work, such as working at the cash register in a convenience store. And the sooner the better.

May this lawsuit succeed in making this happen, to the financial and emotional benefit of Holden Armenta and his family, and for the moral and social benefit of all America.