Bill Maher offered an apology on his show Real Time Friday for using the N-word on air last week.
Rapper and actor Ice Cube was one of his guests, and he had something to say about that.
“It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t said in malice, if it brought back pain to people,” Maher said Friday. “That’s why I apologize freely and I reiterate it tonight.”
Dyson then set the context for Maher’s words, explaining that “black people said, it’s not as if black people in the house were any better off than the people in the field, both of them were subject to slave, dominance, hegemony, hatred and the like, as a result of that, people think that’s insensitive.”
READ MORE: HBO’s Bill Maher faces backlash after saying the N-word during TV interview
But Dyson wasn’t the only one who responded to Maher’s racial remark on Real Time Friday night.
Ice Cube was a part of a panel on the show.
While he accepted Maher’s apology, he explained a little further why they late-night host’s words were offside.
“I think it’s a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they’re a little too familiar, or they think they’re a little too familiar,” he said.
“Every now and then, they think they can cross the line, and they can’t.”
Ice Cube went on to say that white people have used the N-word against black people “like a knife,” and that they’re “not going to let that happen again.”
“That’s our word now,” he said. “And you can’t have it back.”