The slanging match went on, it was stated, until presenter Libby Purves stepped in and calm things down.

The report said Howe set things off during the discussion about race issues by remarking, “Since black offends Joan.”

The comment caused Rivers to erupt in fury.

She stormed: “Just stop right now.

“Black does not offend me.

“How dare you?

“How dare you say that?

“Black offends me?

“You know nothing about me …”

Howe clarified his comment by saying that “the use of the term Black” offended Rivers.

“The use of the term black offends me?

“Where the hell are you coming from?

“You have got such a chip on your shoulder,” Rivers yelled.

“I don’t give a damn if you are Black or White ...

“Don’t you dare call me a racist?

“He says that the term black offends me.

“I will not sit here …

“Don’t you dare call me that, you son of a bitch.”

Howe was on the programme to talk about his forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, Son of Mine.

The film explores Howe’s relationship with his 20-year old son, Amiri.

Purves tried to defuse the row by pleading with Howe: “Can’t we just say that you don’t think Joan is a racist?”

However, Howe replied: “I don’t know whether she is a racist or not.

“I don’t care.”

IT was a crisp autumn morning.

Mrs. Howe and I shuffled around each other in the kitchen of our new home as she itemised my chores for the day.

By 7.30 a.m. I was off to Broadcasting House by taxi provided by the BBC, enough time to get to the mid-week Radio show presented by Libby Purvis, there to discuss my film Son of Mine made for Channel 4.

DARCUS HOWE

The producer had briefed me sometime before on my fellow guests; Jackie Collins, the author, Andrea a plant photographer, and Joan Rivers a comedienne.

Only Andrea was a mystery to me, and so is plant photography.

Although I’ve never read a Jackie Collins novel, I knew her through her comments from time to time in the British Press.

I sat through a Joan Rivers set quite recently on the Jack Dee show.

She appeared to me crass and much too coarse, but that is an old genre in Anerican comedy.

The guests and the presenter were already seated as I entered the studio, an hour and a half after leaving home.

Libby Purvis was amiably polite as she turned to Jackie Collins. The tone was as I had expected a civilised discourse a la Radio 4.

It was Collins who introduced race into the discussion as she explained that she uses people whom she meets to inform the characters in her novels.

And one of them was a mixed race girl whose mother always insisted to her that she was Black.

I concurred, saying quite simply both the mother of my two girls and I did the same.

Inoffensive, it seemed to me at the time.

Joan Rivers sitting next to me shifted her tiny frame around the chair.

And then Purvis and I sparred a bit, she was warm and engaging as she drew references to moments in the film.

In one of those, she pointed out that I got rather angry with my ex-wife upbraiding her about her colonial baggage.

I replied that those moments of intensity were pretty common during our relationship.

I admitted telling her one time “if you think that go and join the bloody BNP”.

Rivers kicked off.

She was bored with race; she’s interested only in people. Why don’t we just love each other, inter marry, just be friends.

I found this rather odd from a White American who had lived through Civil Rights, Black Power and latterly New Orleans.

I was taken aback by her fury; it seemed to fall out from a distant sky.

It was clear to me that race had returned to American society with an urgency that disturbed White Americans of Rivers’ ilk.

Jesse Jackson likened New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina to the conditions of slave ships four centuries ago.

Kayne West, the celebrated rapper, blasted Bush’s America for its racism and this bores Ms Rivers; it does not bore me particularly since July 7, when we appeared to reap a whirlwind.

At the end of her rant, Joan Rivers transformed herself immediately into a calm and quiet great grandmother.

As I said my goodbyes Joan sidled up to me and whispered “Darcus my dear, don’t worry about anything this will be great publicity for your film”.

I muttered to myself “and for your tour”.