http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/showrunner-roundtable-12-a-list-892520

During last year's roundtable, Lee Daniels said he finds white people writing for black people offensive. But I wonder whether it goes beyond white people writing for black people, black people writing for white people … BARRIS That doesn't happen. Black people don't get to write for white people. They don't? BARRIS They do not. I don't hate white people writing for black people because I think it's been done really well. The Color Purple is one of my favorite movies of all time. I don't think it's fair that it doesn't go the opposite way — and to be completely honest with you, we have a better idea of your voice than you do of ours because we have to live in your world. You don't have to live in my world; you're a visitor if you choose to be, if you want to go hang out with your girls and listen to hip-hop. But if I'm going to be an active member of society, I have to live in your world. So I have a better idea of your voice than you have of mine, but I am not allowed to write your voice and you're allowed to write mine. KHAN If I waited to write only for a Persian lesbian, I'd still be waiting. But I can write for straight white men because those are the jobs. If you want to be a writer, you have to learn to write in other people's voices until you get the chance to write in your own. What's so exciting to me [about the diverse ABC comedies] is that now we get to flip the switch and tell stories that maybe you've seen before through a different lens. YANG I would never begrudge someone's ability or capacity to write for a character who doesn't look like them, but that being said, there is something to shows where there is that authenticity. Our show is about two 30-year-old guys who are Asian and Indian, and the guys who create the show are Asian and Indian. So yeah, Harold & Kumar is a great movie, but I'm glad there is a show that's about those two characters that is made by people who look like them because there are certain things you've experienced that maybe someone who doesn't look like you hasn't. BROSH MCKENNA It's an interesting thing because you want your differences to be acknowledged. It's very important to me that I'm a woman, that my parents are immigrants, that I'm Jewish, that my mother was a Holocaust survivor. But I don't want to be defined by them, and that's the road you walk. We have a writer, Rene Gube, who's Filipino. He helps us a lot with Vinnie, who's Filipino, but he will also riff whole Rachel bits because he understands her comedic sensibility. You want to be able to make that contribution because you have a unique point of view, but on the other hand you want to feel like it's not important when I say it's not important.