I’ve lived several places in the Bay Area: San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, 
   San Bruno. All places I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong. I walked around 
   and saw scant few other black women.

Also, from her article, the sole time she mentions being happy at work is this:

   our team was predominantly black. I could relate to my teammates without 
   having to conform. I didn’t have to be anything different than who I was and 
   I flourished there. I was mostly happy at work [...]

[1] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06081.html

[2] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06085.html

So not only could the woman in the story be more comfortable because there are more black people, but also other races who are typically more welcoming

I believe in NYC the type of comfort is more forced and the wage gap is probably much larger. It's more of a "deal with it because I have to" and being comfortable with black folks because it's easiest, not because they see black people as equals. My suspicion is mostly because of the support NYC'ers seemingly have of elected officials that espouse "zero tolerance" and "stop-frisk" policies.

I'm speculating quite a bit here, it would be nice to here if my theory matches anyone’s real world experiences with both places.

She talks about not fitting in until she reaches Oakland and the issue of racism.

A huge portion of the article is talking about her not wanting to do an activity that the rest of the team does (e.g. video gaming or drinking beer) I do not feel as though these activities are specifically 'white male engineer' activities. If the team was predominantly black, and these activities still being participated in would she have still felt pressured to attend? I assume she would.

If someone says they're uncomfortable they're uncomfortable. Even with black teammates, as a woman she might still feel those activities are not her usual thing to do.

And what you wrote very much isn't what the author wrote.

That's the point.

That said, reading through the article I don't see the author ever claiming that she wants the industry to have predominantly black teams, or that predominantly black teams are the pinnacle of diversity as you suggest. In fact what I was so impressed by how little opinion or suggestion she provided throughout the entire article. For the most part, simply a listing of events that occurred through her career and the impact it had on her.

Regarding the specific quote mentioned in the great-grandparent comment: "When I transferred to my second team there, Desktop Support, diversity lightning struck: I was a black woman reporting to another black woman in a technical role."

Maybe I'm misreading it, but I interpreted it as follows: The expression "lightning struck" generally means that a rare event occurred (I didn't see much listing of it on google, but I've heard the expression many times. Maybe it's a regional thing?). The rare event in this case was, "a black woman reporting to a black woman in a technical role." And I think most people working in tech would pretty much agree this is rare (I don't think I've ever seen it).

And I believe excerpting the next sentence without the two that follows it is somewhat removing the sentence from its context. Here I include all three - she writes: "Moreover, our team was predominantly black. I could relate to my teammates without having to conform. I didn’t have to be anything different than who I was and I flourished there."

My take here is that being secure in an environment where she could relax, she didn't have to spend significant mental cycles trying to conform to other's expectations of her, and she could just be herself and be accepted - as a result she "flourished". Whether that is just personally or also professionally isn't explicitly stated.

Finally quoting another comment you made below >True, but mostly what I meant was that it's funny that she refers to a room full of black people as a utopia of diversity, when it's really just that she happens to be in the majority there.

As far as I could see the author never states the idea of a team of predominantly black people being a utopia or ideal of diversity. I believe this might be an incorrect interpretation of what was written. She does say how wonderful it is to work in an environment where you are accepted for who you are (which she found on that team discussed above), not that a person needs a homogeneous team to be accepted. To support this, near the end she sates what she would like to see in an ideal case "Ideally I’d like to work in a less homogeneous environment where I don’t feel so different." Ie. less homogeneity. However, even that, she doesn't ask of the industry. She doesn't ask for there to be more black people in tech; her simple request, the final sentence of her essay is "My industry needs to change to make everyone feel included and accepted." The only change she is asking for is that Tech allow people who are different to feel accepted for who they are. An incredibly modest but valuable human request.

In general I try to avoid writing comments quoting other people like this because no matter how well meaning you may be, when read on the internet it often comes across as sniping. So I'll leave things there, as I do genuinely appreciate this discussion, and hopefully this comment came across as a positive discussion as I intended.

My goal was just to point out that we should be cautious and ensure that in discussions we separate what the author is saying from our interpretation of their intent. It's a challenging task to do in any reading.