It could hardly be as true, (if at all) for a straight white kid growing up in Harlem, Cleveland, Watts, Detroit, or little Havana

The article is talking about the aggregate population though. It's beyond argument that straight white male is the lowest difficulty setting, despite the fact that there are instances of some straight white males being born withless privilege than some minorities. The key thing to keep in mind is that those SWMs are the exception to the rule, and lie at the outer edge of the bell curve.

But you are absolutely correct in that life is what you make of it. You or I don't work any less harder towards our goals because of the existence of people richer, healthier, and more privileged than us. The same should go for everybody. Institutionalized inequality needs to be confronted and demolished, but while that is happening, nobody has any business using its existence as an excuse not to give their best effort. That is self defeating, and some people buy into that, unfortunately for them.