I think that was in there to show that he's likely not a bigot, because that seems to be the default assumption about anyone that doesn't go along with the dogma of the far left these days.
Your comment gets me wondering though, in the case of the question about "why black people don't code": Are we able to pick apart the causality of "systematic disadvantages" vs "each group has it's reasons"? I ask because the "systematic disadvantages" narrative is seductive and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence, but I'm not sure I've seen a nice data on the subject that could prove one way or the other why it really is that "black people don't code".