By describing what the speaker likes, Hughes suggests that there are many things which people enjoy regardless of their race. That is the way Hughes expresses a distinct viewpoint about race in the poem "Theme for English B".
In this poem, the speaker is a black young man, who is also the only "colored" student in his class. Moreover, he admits that he enjoys doing many things that people of other races also enjoy such as eating, sleeping, working, and understanding life. He wants to express the idea that, even though he seems to be very different from his peers, he actually shares things in common with them ("I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like / The same things other folks like who are other races."). Therefore, Hughes expresses a different view about race by supporting the idea of diversity and implying that skin colour does not define someone as a person.
