(The Root) — Comedian Wayne Brady wasn't laughing during a HuffPost Live interview in which he discussed some shots sent his way by Bill Maher. Brady called Maher to task for questioning his blackness in a joke about President Obama's street cred.
Brady is no stranger to people coming at him for his "blackness," or lack thereof, and he's shown that he can be a good sport about it; he famously appeared in a Dave Chappelle sketch in which he exacted his revenge for a dig in another episode of the show. But those types of jabs coming from the likes of Bill Maher are apparently too much. "Bill Maher has never walked in my shoes, nor any black man's shoes," Brady said, arguing that Maher has no right to measure blackness or speak on the black experience — no matter how many black women he dates.
Twitter, for the most part, agrees. The interview sparked a conversation about white people policing blackness, as well as some comments about remarks Brady made that some consider transphobic (he accused some of Maher's former flames of being men, insultingly). And, of course, it inspired some jokes, too.
Tracy Clayton is a writer, humorist and blogger from Louisville, Ky.