Deadspin’s demonization of a young Chiefs fan exposes the folly of virtue-signaling

A lack of gratitude may be the most harmful consequence of America’s abandonment of Christian values.

The Bible could be appropriately renamed “The Book of Gratitude.” Its 66 books weave a narrative that fills a genuine believer with a spirit of thankfulness, obligation, and indebtedness.

We owe everything to Christ, God in human form who suffered and died on a cross. The recognized debt we owe Him imbues believers to think, see, and act in a spirit of constant gratitude. Gratitude is the gateway drug to grace.

When I think of my deceased father, I don’t ponder our disagreements, of which there were many. I think on the sacrifices he made for my advancement. The same goes for my mother, brother, stepsister, and stepbrother. That spirit of gratitude extends beyond my family, close friends, mentors, coaches, teachers, and coworkers. It extends to my ancestors in this country, the men, women, and institutions that made America the freest, most opportunity-rich, safest, and fairest place on earth for all people, but especially for black men.

I owe them all a debt. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Allen, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Gratitude diminishes the importance of their flaws and elevates the importance of their sacrifice.

Modern American culture diminishes gratitude and elevates the importance of culture-defined virtue. Gratitude leads man to God. The pursuit of virtue makes man a slave to the world.

Imagine allowing your pursuit of public virtue to bait you into demonizing a child you saw briefly on a television screen.

I bring all this up to explain why a 40-year-old writer at Deadspin, Carron J. Phillips, would attempt to make a costumed child at an NFL game the face of “racism.” Phillips is a full-grown man. He holds a master’s degree from Syracuse’s allegedly prestigious Newhouse School of Journalism. He’s worked as a “journalist” for more than a decade.

For the last three years, Phillips has written racial hot takes for Deadspin. On Monday, he reached a new low. He took an image of a small white child wearing a headdress, a Travis Kelce jersey, and face paint from the CBS TV broadcast of the Chiefs-Raiders game and wrote a jumbled mess of a column that called for the NFL to “speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in black face, native headdress.”

Here’s the beginning of Phillips’ race-bait column:

It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan found a way to hate black people and the native Americans at the same time.

From the comfort of his couch or a barstool, Phillips discerned that a costumed child in Las Vegas hates black people and native Americans. Phillips didn’t know the child’s name. He’s never met the child or the child’s parents. He saw the child’s image flash across a television screen.

No one with an ounce of gratitude in his soul would reach such an outlandish conclusion. Only someone seeking the perception of virtue would target an unknown child for this kind of public smear.

At the top of Phillips’ article is a picture of the unknown child featuring the half of his face that is painted black. The other half of his face is painted red. Sports fans have been painting their faces for decades. It’s a harmless and pointless tradition. It’s fun. There is no malicious intent.

I used to spend a lot of time in Las Vegas. It isn’t the kind of city where random adults seek racial conflict. No adult would send a small child into a 70,000-seat stadium in an outfit that conveyed hatred toward black people or native Americans. Who wants that kind of unnecessary drama?

People pursuing virtue do, because in their warped view of the world there’s nothing more virtuous than victimhood.

Virtue-seekers want to be Jesus. They read themselves into the Bible. They read the Bible as an autobiography. They place themselves on the cross. They want the world to feel obligated to, thankful for, and indebted to them.

They read the Bible the way Satan reads it. They pursue a virtue, a power, and an omnipresence that rivals God. They reject gratitude.

The rejection of gratitude explains modern American culture.

When you start each day thinking about what Christ suffered, you refuse victimization. The slights, inconveniences, insensitivities, and occasional disrespect you suffer seem inconsequential. The burdens, misfortunes, unfairness, and attacks you endure are interpreted as weightlifting sessions that make you stronger in the next battle.

When a spirit of gratitude truly takes root in your heart and mind, your daily focus is on repaying the debts you owe rather than a foolish journey of proving you have suffered as much as your ancestors.

Americans of all ethnicities suffered and died so that I could live free.

What do I owe them? I have to take advantage of and protect the freedoms and opportunities they created.

A country and a government cannot liberate mankind from unfairness. Only the return of Jesus Christ can do that. Secularists believe man can deliver what Christ promised. Man is capable of gratitude and obedience. That’s it. Those are our superpowers if we choose to unlock and use them. Gratitude and obedience should compel us to repay the debts we owe our ancestors, not to seek to imitate their suffering. We look foolish doing that. We look ungrateful.

Imagine dying during the Civil War or while protesting to eliminate legalized racial discrimination and seeing your ancestors claim that a face-painted child at a football game is expressing racial hatred. Imagine allowing your pursuit of public virtue to bait you into demonizing a child you saw briefly on a television screen.

This is just one of the many consequences of a culture that has turned hostile to Christian culture. The beauty of America is you don’t have to believe what I believe to recognize the inferiority of secular culture.