HoustonChronicle- Mike Atkinson, one of the state’s longest-tenured high school football referees, has been suspended for the 2019 season by the Texas Association of Sports Officials after making racist comments.
Atkinson, who owns Atkinson Farms in Spring and has been a high school football official for 45 years, admits to using the N-word several times in conversations, audio clips of which were provided to the Houston Chronicle by the person who made the recordings. “I thought these were private conversations between friends,” Atkinson said. “I promise you with my life, using the N-word by me is true, but I will promise you with my life, my wife's life, my kids’ life and everything I do, (the person who taped him) also used that word. “We were back and forth. I understand what it sounds like, but I was baited into it.” In one of the clips, Atkinson addresses a “Chapter and Crew Mixer” hosted by the Houston Football Chapter of TASO, held at Kirby Ice House on Feb. 10. “I just went to the mixer the other day … a bunch of f------ n-----s wanting a free meal,” Atkinson said. The context isn’t clear in the other clips, but they include the following statements: “He would find a way to n----- it up.” “There probably was some of them … (a black official) thought he had, ’cause he wanted to be the big n-----.” Atkinson told the Chronicle he had no issues with having a black person on his crew if he could find a good one. Brian Raines, who is black, was on his 2018 crew. “They’re putting all this out there that I’m a big-time racist and all this,” Atkinson said. “For the people that know me, they know that’s not true.” Atkinson said he does not regularly use the N-word. “I know what it sounds like when you hear those clips,” he said. “But I’m talking to (the person who made the recordings) in a private conversation, and he’s using the word, and I said it a couple times. “I’m a jokester. I like to listen to things. I watch Black Entertainment Television all the time because I think it’s hilarious. I may have picked up something … I don’t know. I don’t know.” -------- Aside from the obvious, which was the casual and repetitive use of a slur that's meant to undermine the entire existence of black people as equals, I sneaky think one of the biggest clues that Mike Atkinson is a racist who thinks of his whistle as a weapon of white power is that he referred to BET as "Black Entertainment Television". Finding an objectively funnier race to be humorous wouldn't help his argument anyway, as he was apparently dropping n-bombs like they were set to explode on the tip of his tongue, but I can't help but find myself wondering what old, TV Guide-subscribing Texan fed him that elongated acronym as a defense. As far as dead giveaways that someone doesn't watch BET are concerned, they don't get more fatal than pronouncing the channel's every single syllable as though you're surprised such a thing even exists. Now, I suppose that's hardly the only aspect of this story that has his hands looking as red as his neck. Proudly pointing to the ONE black guy he worked alongside over the course of a 45 year career in officiating football, as if he pardons damn near half a century of perceived prejudice, doesn't exactly paint a multi-colored picture of progressiveness. Mike Atkinson running the ringer in blaming everyone from the person he was on the phone with to his allegedly African American-influenced choice in television for serving as inspirations for "jokes" that read a hell of a lot like dehumanizing insults probably tells you more about what type of person he is than what he calls BET. That said, speaking as someone who grew up watching BET, what he calls BET is more likely have been heard while binging Fox News than uttered by someone who has watched even 5 minutes of BET.
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