I feel that there has been progress made since I was a boy on matters of race, but we have a long way to go.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Every single thing in my life is built around race.
I try to keep in mind that it's a long journey. It's not a race. It's about staying focused, continuing to do good work, make my family and community proud; that's all I really want to do... and pay my bills.
Overall my race hasn't been a problem. I'm a Black artist with White skin. At the end of the day you have to sing what's in your own soul.
What I really hoped to do with my work was to at least be able to define my relationship to race.
I don't think I ever set my goals that high. As a kid growing up I just wanted an opportunity to race and to be able to make a living doing it. It just came together.
There's always a lot of talk about motivation to race, but nobody really knows what I do or what I think apart from myself, so I don't really care what people think.
I'm disappointed that I really haven't been able to race in a way that is reflective of the amount of work that I have done and how I have trained. But I don't regret giving this a go.
I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.
I never though much about race.
I believe race is too heavy a burden to carry into the 21st century. It's time to lay it down. We all came here in different ships, but now we're all in the same boat.