I think it's hard for people to stomach the notion of deconstructing race when we've designed society in such a way that has hamstringed groups for generations. I'm all for forgetting 'race' as a social construct, but I think there's a few things we'll need to atone for first.
The challenge is that race and culture are often tied together. In 1920 New York the Irish and the Italians would have effectively treated each other as different races. As culture homogenized, those ‘racial’ differences also faded away—now everyone is just European. It’s a challenge to maintain your culture within a dominant culture while not suffering socio-economically.
Unless I'm sorely mistaken, Kanye definitely did not say that——Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a response in the Atlantic to Kanye's public statements about race and Trump and the headline was 'I'm Not Black, I'm Kanye' which is a reference to O.J. Simpson, who allegedly told his friends, "I'm not black, I'm O.J."
I hope that this interview won't be dismissed as another "bootstraps" polemic by an elite like Freeman or Cosby, when it seems like just a regular guy reflecting thoughtfully about himself & his culture. So much of our cultural conversation around race reduces to the tension between the prioritization of group & individual identity.
I really appreciated this interview, including his assessment of Ta-Nehisi Coates. I'll have to pick up his book.
As a side-note, I couldn't help but think of Kayne declaring that 'he's not black, he's Kanye' as an attempt to get across what Williams is talking about here. Of course, it tremendously backfired. I'm also reminded of some of Moran Freeman interviews, in which he cooly refuses to be pigeonholed.