As Elon Musk and Ted Cruz rail against Deadspin for falsely accusing a young Kanas City Chiefs fan of wearing blackface, Dan Le Batard notes the right is still missing the point.
Sunday afternoon, during Kansas City’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders on CBS, the broadcast flashed to a young Chiefs fan wearing face paint and a headdress. Images of the child spread on social media, depicting the kid as wearing blackface and Deadspin published an article calling the fan out for “doubling up on the racism.”
In response to Deadspin’s article titled, The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress,” Outkick noted that the kid had half his face painted in red, which rallied conservatives to rip the sports blog. The color choice was odd, considering the Chiefs are more known for red, gold and white, but the fan was not wearing blackface. And as the right latches on to the fact that the young fan was not in blackface, Dan Le Batard notes racism was still on display.
“The stupidity of this is remarkable…this feels like the Vegas residency stage of racism policing…”
We discuss the controversy surrounding Deadspin and the Kansas City Chiefs.
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— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) November 28, 2023
“A five-year-old kid at a game has been dressed in face paint and he is wearing Native American gear, he’s at a Chiefs game. Half of his face is red, half of his face is black,” Le Batard summarized before paraphrasing the right’s response. “‘He should be punished because he’s wearing blackface and you’re only seeing half of his face.’ And then you see, ‘Nope, there’s also red face.’
“The right picked this up and said, ‘Sue Deadspin, bankrupt Deadspin.’ And I can’t help but laugh at the center of this, I can’t help but laugh at the idea that they want them sued for one racism, while the kid is still in full racist garb. The only part of him that’s not intentionally, kind of, racist is the black part! The rest is team colors and he’s going for just being a fan, but the racism is already in there, just not the kind the right is picking up and flogging Deadspin with over a five-year-old kid. Like, the stupidity of this is remarkable.”
Elon Musk championed Community Notes for clarifying that Deadspin’s headline and featured image fails to show that the young Chiefs fan had half of his face painted red. Even Ted Cruz pretended to care about Deadspin, noting that the sports blog “should be ashamed,” but “they won’t be.” And while it’s fair of anyone to provide the full context that the Chiefs fan was not in blackface, it’s wrong to ignore the fact of discrimination still being on display in the image that was shown by CBS.
In 2020, the Kansas City Chiefs banned fans from wearing headdresses and Native American face paint to Arrowhead Stadium in an effort to confront racist imagery. As seen on Sunday, Arrowhead Stadium’s policy is not universally shared by the NFL, with some venues still allowing headdresses to make it through their gates.
Did the child need to be exposed for portraying racist iconography on Sunday? Probably not in the manner of being used for political gain. The left can request the NFL to ban headdresses, the right can provide the context that the fan was not in blackface, and let’s move on.
Instead, the five-year-old is being used as a political pawn, with the right attempting to exhaust a culture war through the same behavior they sought to cancel a few years ago.
“Now it just feels everyone’s just trying to trot out the hits,” Pablo Torre told Le Batard regarding the right’s outrage. “We’re all just kind of exhausted by this.”
