Yikes. Former Daily Show writer Wyatt Cenac revealed in a new interview that he once challenged Jon Stewart for his black impersonation, which resulted in a blowout fight with the Comedy Central host.
Cenac, 39, recalled the 2011 incident on a recent episode of WTF With Marc Maron, saying it stemmed from Stewart's impersonation of Herman Cain, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate who is black. At the time, Cenac was the sole black writer on staff at the Daily Show, and raised his eyebrows when Stewart announced that he was planning a segment called "Everything I Do Is Racist" in response to his controversial imitation.
"I don’t think this is from a malicious place, but I think this is from a naïve, ignorant place," Cenac shared. "'Oh no, you just did this and you didn’t think about it.' It was just the voice that came into your head. And so it bugged me."
So, Cenac spoke up during the writers' meeting and let his concerns be known. "I've got to be honest, and I just spoke from my place," he continued. "I wasn’t here when it all happened. I was in a hotel. And I cringed a little bit. It bothered me."
Which his boss did not appreciate, at all. "[Stewart] got incredibly defensive. I remember he was like, What are you trying to say? There’s a tone in your voice," Cenac recalled. "I was like, 'There’s no tone. It bothered me. It sounded like Kingfish.' And then he got upset. And he stood up and he was just like, 'F— off. I’m done with you.' And he just started screaming that to me. And he screamed it a few times. "'F— off! I’m done with you.' And he stormed out. And I didn’t know if I had been fired."
After the explosive fight, Cenac walked outside and broke down. "I was shaking, and I just sat there by myself on the bleachers and f—ing cried," he recalled. "And it’s a sad thing. That’s how I feel. That’s how I feel in this job. I feel alone."
Then, he left. "The longest conversation we ever had was the day I quit," he shared.
Cenac's point was that racism infiltrates even places like the Daily Show — and he wants to stand his ground against racist manifestations in everyday speech. "I represent my people, and I try to represent them the best that I can," he reflected. "I gotta be honest if something seems questionable, because if not, then I don’t want to be in a position where I am being untrue not just to myself but to my culture, because that’s exploitative."
