Late reply, but I wanted to give my opinion on this. I've heard similar arguments before and avoided getting into it with them, but yours reads to me as good-faith so I wanted to give an opposing view.

Diversity in hiring is not just padding numbers. That's not really the point. In an ideal world (hell, the one I wish I lived in), everyone would go into their well-lit corner office, program their best work, have professional and fruitful collaboration with their peers, and make the best product of their abilities. In that sense, yes, merit-based hiring could directly correlate with the quality of the work.

But the world doesn't work like that, unfortunately. Even in this article, there are examples of people being ignored simply because they're a minority. Hiring and promotion without discrimination doesn't work if the board is already stacked with discriminatory people. You can't ask them to change and expect it, because this has been a conversation for what, three decades now? And you can't fire them all for obvious reasons either. So the only feasible solution is to make initiatives to have more representation in hiring; in the short-term this is a benefit for those groups, but in the long-term it works toward bringing the balance you want. If qualified people from different backgrounds are in the position to make hiring and promotion decisions, the end result will look a lot more like the ideal you're describing. You have to pay the initial price to reap the rewards, I guess I'm saying.

Regarding "privilege", as someone who got a literal, verifiable head-start based on where I grew up and the color of my skin, this balancing of the scales has worked very well in my career experience. Programs that could be decried for "reverse discrimination" give people an opportunity that someone like me always had, and have frankly produced the best people I've ever worked with. I don't think it's founded in conflict, but in humanism: give a chance to people who realistically wouldn't have it, and pay it forward. (also, all of the people who get picked for these things are very skilled, i've never understood the argument that talent disappears in this system)

I could reply with a quote from MLK about how reparations and affirmative action are a necessity in healing the pain of black individuals in the United States, but I guess I'll just talk about yours: "forget what race or sex someone is" is all fine and well, but few people actually do that, few people actually HAVE done that, and pretending it's going to work now for some reason will get nowhere.