He Said It 20 Times in Court. Couldn’t Say It Once to a Black Man’s Face

Brazoria County attorney Michael M. Phillips spent three weeks of a child custody trial allegedly using the N-word with a hard R in open court. Multiple times. On the record. In front of a judge. Then activist Quanell X stood six inches from his face and dared him to say it one more time, and suddenly this man forgot the entire English language.

The trial took place in Angleton, Texas, where Phillips was opposing counsel to Brenda G. DeRouen, a Black woman attorney representing the other side of a custody modification case. According to court records and reporting from Click2Houston, Phillips repeated the slur “in a derisive manner” while arguing outside the presence of the jury. District Court Judge Chad D. Bradshaw held him in contempt, sentenced him to three days in jail, and fined him $500. Both penalties were suspended on the condition that Phillips submit written apologies to the court and to DeRouen by June 30, 2026.
So the punishment for repeatedly using a racial slur against a Black woman attorney in open court is writing apology letters. Like a fifth grader who got caught passing notes.

Phillips disputed the framing in a statement to KPRC 2 News, claiming opposing counsel was actually the one using the word in front of the jury and he was just objecting to it. His words: “Despite my consistent objection, virtually every single day of the three week trial, opposing counsel repeatedly used the n-word with a hard r in the jury’s presence.” He also said he apologized “immediately” after the incident. The judge found him in contempt anyway, so the court was not moved by the “she said it first” defense.
Here is where the story gets good.

Days after the contempt ruling, activists Dr. Candice Matthews and Quanell X pulled up to the Brazoria County Courthouse to confront Phillips on camera. Dr. Matthews walked alongside him mocking his own courtroom performance back to him in the same cadence he reportedly used during trial, repeating the slur three times in a row right to him.

Then Quanell X stepped to him. Looked him dead in his face. And delivered the quote that should be lionized by the culture from this point forward: “I dare you to do it, and I swear for God, I’ll make you taste the ancestors. You’re a coward. Calling a Black woman the N-word, you’re a real coward.”
Phillips, who had no shortage of vocabulary across a three week trial, suddenly could not locate a single syllable. He stood there. He blinked. He walked away. The man who had been auditioning for a Klan recruitment video on the record for weeks went mute the moment a Black man stood in front of him and asked him to repeat himself one time.

This is the part Quanell X named explicitly. His read on Phillips was that the slur was a tactic, not a slip. “What he was really intending to do, cause he was losing the trial, and he lost the trial to the Black female attorney, so he tried to frighten and intimidate her to win the case.” Quanell continued: “We will never allow our women to be disrespected by any white men.” Then he added the receipt: “You did that to a Black woman by herself, but I’d be God damned if you try it with me.”

And about that trial. Phillips lost. DeRouen’s client won the case. So all of the courtroom theatrics, all of the slurs allegedly deployed as strategy, all of the contempt rulings and viral video and apology letters Phillips now gets to handwrite before June 30, were for nothing. He lost the case to the Black woman he was allegedly trying to intimidate.

DeRouen issued her own statement to KPRC 2 News, calling the conduct “deeply disturbing” and noting that “attorneys should be able to advocate fiercely for their clients without being subjected to racially charged conduct that undermines professionalism and dignity in the courtroom.”
The summary: Phillips had plenty of words for a Black woman attorney across three weeks of trial. He had zero words for a Black man across thirty seconds in a hallway. He lost the case, caught a contempt ruling, and is currently somewhere drafting apology letters in cursive.
Catch him in court. Just not outside of it.

White attorney was held in contempt for saying the n-word multiple times during a court proceeding

Quanell X and Candace Matthews pulled up on his ass and all of a sudden he on mute pic.twitter.com/fVTEPtjImw

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) May 19, 2026