I don't we should emphasize race in that way, when it's only relevant because "your race is less common in doing this thing". I don't want to see a headline like "white basketball player becomes all time NBA point leader". The race isn't important in that way.
That kind of thinking is what led to the self-fulfilling prophecy of slavery and racism against black people in the Americas in the first place -- the idea that they are less capable and it would therefore be surprising if they achieved something that the white man finds commonplace.
But these are different concepts. The bias of racism is one of erroneously assuming a person's capability based on something which has nothing to do with their actual capability. On the other hand, "emphasizing race" in a story can be used to point out the opposite of the above bias, in order to counter it.
If you've grown up all your life hearing the first bias, you may believe it. And then suddenly you see a story that refutes that bias, and you realize that actually, maybe the bias was wrong. Maybe it shouldn't be weird that this certain kind of person can do this certain kind of thing. It can take a lot of examples over a long period of time, but it works.
Countering the bias requires examples, and you have to actually publish those examples. If you never have stories that counter the bias, people literally just keep believing the bias. If in the 18th century nobody had ever put out stories about freedmen starting businesses, nobody would have believed that a freedman was capable of doing business. They needed those stories published just to change how people thought. That's the purpose of "black man becomes beekeeper" stories - to change perceptions, a little bit at a time.
That kind of story is useless if it's about something that everybody already knows and believes, but it's incredibly valuable if it fights a bias. This is the reason you don't see "white man becomes beekeeper" stories - we already know white people can be beekeepers. We don't all know the opposite. (If this sounds dumb, yes, I agree... but that's literally the kind of bias many people have, and this is how to counter it)
I don't we should emphasize race in that way, when it's only relevant because "your race is less common in doing this thing". I don't want to see a headline like "white basketball player becomes all time NBA point leader". The race isn't important in that way.
That kind of thinking is what led to the self-fulfilling prophecy of slavery and racism against black people in the Americas in the first place -- the idea that they are less capable and it would therefore be surprising if they achieved something that the white man finds commonplace.