Last year Kanye West was charged with battery and grand theft after attacking a paparazzo and smashing his camera, a crime for which he was sentenced to probation and anger management classes. TMZ obtained a copy of Kanye’s deposition from the case, during which Kanye made many entertainingly Kanye statements. Besides referring to the photographer as “scum” and calling out the opposing lawyer Nate Goldberg for using the n-word while quoting lyrics from “Flashing Lights” — “You have to ask for a hall pass. You can’t just say the ‘n’ word around me,” he explained — he also declared under oath, “I’m the smartest celebrity you’ve ever fucking dealt with. I’m not Britney Spears.” Most controversially, he compared celebrities’ battle with the paparazzi to the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s, his most outrageous Civil Rights metaphor since the legendary Yeezus lyric “Your titties, let ‘em out, free at last/ Thank God almighty, they free at last.” Take it away, ‘Ye:

Kanye says there’s a parallel between blacks fighting for civil rights in the ’60s and celebs fighting for theirs today: “I mean in the ’60s people used to hold up ‘Die Nigger’ signs when my parents were in the sit-ins also.” Goldberg asks if he equates the struggle of blacks in the past with celebrities today and Kanye says, “Yes, 100 … I equate it to discrimination. I equate it to inequalities.”

Kanye goes on, “We, as group of minorities here in L.A., as celebrities have to ban together to influence guys like this — guys trying to take the picture, guys trying to get the big win, guys trying to get the check.”

Now, look, this is a guy who has photographers haunting him like demons, who bumped his head into a street sign trying to avoid them and probably suffered equivalent psychic damage. As someone who values my own privacy, I don’t envy that aspect of his life. He is in a unique position that we mere mortals can’t fully comprehend. And yet — and yet! — he probably needs to get the fuck out of here with that comparison, don’t you think?

TMZ also notes that when Goldberg asked where he lives, Kanye responded, “Earth.”

Read more at TMZ.

UPDATE: There’s more!

In the depo … Kanye sarcastically asks the photog’s lawyer, “Is your daughter stalked by like drones? Are there drones flying where she’s trying to learn how to swim at age 1?”

Kanye goes on … “Wouldn’t you like to just teach your daughter how to swim without a drone flying? What happens if a drone falls right next to her? Would it electrocute her?”

As for how that could happen, Kanye says, “Could it fall and hit her if that paparazzi doesn’t understand how to remote control the drone over their house?”

[Photo by Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP.]