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

In a ruling earlier this week, a Delaware judge rejected the motion of the news organization Deadspin to dismiss the lawsuit by 9-year-old Holden Armenta that accuses the news organization of falsely slandering the boy as a racist and bigot.

This story is just another example of the legacy of hate that came out of the Obama era, whereby leftists decided they had the right to slander and defame anyone they wanted, simply for political gain. In this case Deadspin writer Carron Phillips had in an article unjustly accused this child of being a racist because he attended a game wearing facepaint.

Phillips wrote the child was wearing blackface, and Deadspin helped Phillips push this lie by printing a picture that only showed the black side of Armenta’s face. A head-on shot showed his facepaint had nothing to do with blackface, but was a typical example of what many football fans do, paint their faces with the colors of their team. The right side of the boy’s face was painted black, the left side red.

What made the slander even more egregious is that Holden is an American Indian, with his grandfather, Raul Armenta, on the board of the Chumash Tribe in Santa Ynez, California. Deadspin and Phillips further worsened the situation by refusing to take down the story. Phillips even went so far as to further accuse the boy of bigotry against American Indians by the use of the red face paint!

Deadspin, which shortly after its slanderous behavior was sold to a foreign company which then fired its entire staff, had attempted to get the Armenta lawsuit dismissed, claiming that Phillips’ article was simply an “opinion,” not a statement of a false fact that was libelous. Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg bluntly rejected that argument, allowing the lawsuit to now go forward.

“Deadspin published an image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child, crossed the fine line protecting its speech from defamation claims,” the judge wrote.

“Having reviewed the complaint, the court concludes that Deadspin’s statements accusing H.A. [Holden Armenta] of wearing black face and Native headdress ‘to hate black people and the Native American at the same time,’ and that he was taught this hatred by his parents, are provable false assertions of fact and are therefore actionable,” Lugg added.

It remains unclear if the Armentas can win very much by the suit. As I noted, the company has been sold, and the assets of the new owners are unknown. Moreover, for some reason the lawsuit did not name any individuals, so Carron Phillips and the now fired Deadspin editors who tried to justify his defamation are facing no personal liability.

There has been some victory however, as noted almost as an aside in the linked article above:

Phillips, accurately described in the Armentas’ lawsuit as “someone who makes his livelihood through vicious race-baiting,” remains unemployed. [emphasis mine]

As I wrote in March in reporting the sale of Deadspin, “Above all, it is very important that we all remember the name of Carron Phillips. If this man ever tries to return to journalism we must remember this incident, because it tells us how unreliable he is as a reporter and person. More important, any news organization that hires him now would immediately label itself suspect.”

It appears that the news business so far wants nothing to do with Phillips. May it remain so.

We can also hope that this lawsuit — as well as the numerous other recent legal victories by defamed individuals — might finally force the people on the left to exercise some caution before accusing others of bigotry and racism.

It isn’t likely, at least in the short run. In the long run however the present trends are definitely hopeful.