diff --git a/lib/ansible/utils.py b/lib/ansible/utils.py
index 4740a7d4e3..037afd871a 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/utils.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/utils.py
@@ -267,7 +267,7 @@ def parse_yaml_from_file(path):
 def parse_kv(args):
     ''' convert a string of key/value items to a dict '''
     options = {}
-    if not args is None:
+    if args is not None:
         vargs = shlex.split(args, posix=True)
         for x in vargs:
             if x.find("=") != -1: