Jemele Hill Doesn't Acknowledge Deadspin Blackface Hoax With Author Responsible For Smearing Child

You probably have not heard the name Carron J. Phillips in over a year.

He lost his job in March when G/O Media sold Deadspin to the European firm Lineup Publishing. A month before, Phillips was named in a lawsuit against Deadspin and G/O Media after he falsely framed a nine-year-old Chiefs boy for wearing blackface.

Let's back up.

On Nov. 27, 2023, Phillips published the following photo of a random kid at a Raiders game with the subsequent headline, "The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in blackface."

He then accused the child of "hating both black people and Native Americans."

However, as multiple fans at the game quickly pointed out, the other half of the fan's face was painted red. He was not wearing blackface. He was wearing black and red face paint to support his favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who were playing the Raiders that day.

The kid didn't hate Native Americans either. He wore the headdress because he is a Native American.

 Here is the full photo of the fan at that game, a photo Deadspin omitted from its coverage:

On Tuesday, nearly a year later, Phillips re-emerged for his first interview since the lawsuit. He appeared with Jemele Hill on her new podcast, which airs on YouTube. 

What did Phillips have to say about framing a child, the lawsuit, and the damage he caused to the boy and his family? Unfortunately, he didn't address any of those questions. In fact, Jemele Hill never asked about the suit or the piece he published.

Instead, Hill asked Phillips about the "politics of the Super Bowl" and the racism black athletes allegedly face. Riveting.

Now, we understand that Hill is a full-time race grifter who pretends to dislike white people online for trade, despite hanging out with mostly white people in her real life. 

That said, she is a former newspaper reporter and still technically refers to herself as a journalist when she writes about race for The Atlantic. So, we figured she'd at least feel an obligation to acknowledge Phillips' defamatory behavior. We thought wrong.

OutKick did, however, send Hill the following email regarding her decision to ignore the story during the interview:

Jemele,

I saw you interviewed Carron J. Phillips. I am curious: why did you not ask him about purposely defaming a nine-year-old boy of wearing blackface by showing only half of his face? He is facing a lawsuit for that article. Moreover, he knew he had used a deceptive photo and refused to update it until the family threatened legal action 11 days later.

Did you not think that was a worthy topic? Do you still respect him after doing that to a child?

Hill did not respond to our email. We will update this article if she does.

INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 21: Journalist Jemele Hill attends her book release party at 1010 Wine and Events on October 21, 2022 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Robin L Marshall/Getty Images)

As for where the lawsuit stands, a Delaware judge rejected Deadspin's motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit in October. Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg dismissed the argument that the article was an "opinion" and thereby protected from liability for defamation.

"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. 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.

What's more, Deadspin claims that it was "unaware" of the full photo of the fan until after it received a letter from the family's lawyer on Dec. 7, 2023. That is not true.

Deadspin posted the article on Nov. 27, 2023. On Nov. 28, OutKick sent Deadspin, its editors, and Phillips the full photo of the child's face, asking why it had refused to correct the piece. Phillips responded to our email by admitting knowledge of the full photo on X.

"For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse," Phillips wrote in defense of his article. "Y’all are the ones who hate Mexicans but wear sombreros on Cinco."

So, he knew the truth. They all did. 

Yet, for 11 days, Deadspin left the article, without a correction, that it knew contained a deceptively edited screenshot Phillips used to defame a 9-year-old child as a racist.

That is despicable and indefensible.

According to the lawsuit, Phillips' lies caused the boy and his parents to receive hateful messages and death threats. The suit alleges that one person threatened to kill the boy "with a wood chipper" in response to Phillips' article.

Carron J. Phillips did that to a child. Deadspin enabled him to do so and supported the hoax. That makes Phillips and anyone at Deadspin involved a fundamentally rotten person. 

Their actions are unforgivable.

And for Jemele Hill to then celebrate Phillips on her podcast while ignoring what he did to a kid is shameful and unethical. These people need to be held accountable.