What Bill said at the end was, "I realized I have a lot to learn. Working on it." And, I think what he said about "Woke" = "Aware" is important.
On a similar note, I had a contractor in the house and we were discussing this - he's quite educated, degrees in econ from a Calif school, etc. And he used the "I have black friends" thing. I spent a couple of days chewing on it and came up with this hypothesis:
Maybe what they're saying is, "I used to be more prejudiced than now" - IOW I'm aware that I wasn't. So, instead of beating them up with the Ooooooh, SO you have black friends routine; ask them when did you realize you were prejudice?
BTW - that is a CRT principle.