There was a backlash online with fans saying the jokes played into the “angry black woman” trope of an overly emotional and aggressive personality.
Addressing the online reaction on Monday’s podcast, James says: “Andrew was making a joke, frankly a racist joke, and we were laughing at it.
“There’s literally no excuse.”
James says he expected to be the person who would “stand up, kick those cameras down… [and] smack homeboy in the face”.
“But when you’re in there, you’re in shock,” he says, likening it to “fight or flight”.
“It’s not even about pity laughs or anything,” Fuhad adds. “We just wanted to get out of that situation.”
James acknowledged their reaction “really, really hurt people that look to us for support and look to us to feel protected”.
“We’re sorry. For me it’s one of them ones where you don’t realise that, when you’re part of a community, you don’t realise you can hurt your own community,” he says.
“We don’t condone, we don’t appease that behaviour.
“We don’t rate it and we don’t want you guys to think we were sat in that room rating what was going on.”
