I'm not sure this qualifies as a serious problem, I seriously doubt your friend was interested in making the world a fairer place for black people, but I see the mistakes he's making a lot.

There are two main problems with his analysis.

First of all, anybody who looks at the successful black people in the world and assume the the only thing that separates them from the unsuccessful black people in the world is their "get-up-and-go", is an idiot.

It's like looking at somebody like, I don't know, Jared Kushner, who has had countless opportunities and privileges thrown at him from birth, and saying there's no reason a poor white kid from Kentucky couldn't have achieved the same things. There are numerous factors that affect your starting point and path through life. And black people are far more likely to have started from a place that lacked opportunities.

And secondly, if you look at the world today as a snapshot, sure, it's not very racist. A white kid and a black kid with similar abilities and home life and familial wealth, have similar chances of success. But again, the black kid is far less likely to have a similar home life and certainly to have similar familial wealth, because until 60 years ago, for centuries, black people, were actively held back in many areas of life.

Society can't be usefully viewed as a snapshot. It needs context. And the context of society for African Americans is Jim Crow and segregation's impact on their starting point in life. This impact decreases with every new generation. But it's undeniably still there for some black people today.