Does Spike Lee’s new film Chi-Raq focus too much black-on-black crime and not enough on racial bias in policing? That’s the charged question MSNBC’s Chris Hayes posed to the director Tuesday night that got the filmmaker furious.

“One of the things we hear all the time is ‘black on black crime,’” Hayes began. ”You guys are protesting because you know, a cop shot this young black man but young black men kill young black men all the time. There’s a sense in which people feel like that is a disingenuous misdirection.”

Lee immediately took offense. “First of all, people look at my body of my work. I’m the director that made Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, I could go on for another three hours. Look at the body of work. I did not get off just a turnip truck.”

“No, I’m not accusing you of that —“ Hayes replied.

“Sir, it doesn’t matter to me what color or complexion that pulls the trigger,” Lee quickly responded. ”There’s a specific scene where Samuel L. Jackson talks about it. Where he’s in the middle, there’s a gang banger on one side and Chicago cop on other. If you’re a parent — whether your child got killed by a gang banger or cop, you still feel the same.”

“Your child is dead and your child is never coming back to you forever and for the rest of your life, you are going to have a hole in your soul,” Lee said. ”So it doesn’t matter . . . it doesn’t matter to me.”

— Tom S. Elliott is the founder and editor of Grabien.