"When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap"

In this quote, Eminem is reviewing his childhood and how he never saw race as a defining consider his friendships. As a kid, he was not knowledgeable about the idea of race and did not see his friends who were black any in a different way. Nevertheless, as he grew older and ended up being thinking about rap music, he started to end up being more knowledgeable about racial distinctions and how they can impact society. This awareness came as a shock to him and he started to see the world in a different light. This quote highlights the innocence of childhood and how societal impacts can form our understandings of race.