If you're in the (to me, enviable) position of never building a user-facing feature in a piece of software -- if you purely get to think algorithms all day, and you never draw on any knowledge or experience you've gained outside a classroom or a book -- then who knows. Maybe it doesn't matter what life experiences you've had. I personally have never had a job like that. My interests, personality, experience, and wisdom gained outside of work have always made a difference to what I do.

I do not understand the latter half of your 2nd paragraph as I do not see the parent was suggesting you have unique powers. It seemed to me he was just acknowledging that race plays a part in professional America.

As far as how it affects you on the job.... well, in the subject under discussion, they candidates are not even considered for the job because of their race. We have not got to the point where they are even 'on the job'. Per the article, when a diverse candidate was bought in, they performed well.

Perhaps I misread and misunderstood your response and my reply just builds on the confusion.