First, I totally understand your perspective. It's essential for people to have empathy about the conditions of those unlike themselves and part of empathy is curiosity about another's world.
That said, there are two topics of this question: the general and the specific.
The general question is both easier to ask and much harder to answer. How /are/ things for black people in silicon valley? That's a big question for anyone - much less a single person who spends most of their time living life and not doing ethnographic surveys of black people in silicon valley. This is the question that people don't like being asked because they are constantly being asked to stand in for huge, diverse sections of the population. How has it felt when people ask you how the "tech industry" feels about its reputation in San Francisco?
The specific version of the question is, "How are things for you in silicon valley?" It doesn't mention being black, because obviously the person you're asking is black and they'll be answering it as such. That is a question we can all answer and are generally happy to answer - because we can just answer for ourselves and not for everyone is is "like" us in some way. It is also an answer that is almost entirely about the person answering the questions, though obviously it will reflect their experience with race in some way.
So to answer your question about how to learn - seek out people who have chosen to give their answer to the general question in public and use that information to inform your understanding of the specific answers you get from people you meet. Keep in mind that the general answers are always wide and generalize, while specific answers focus on the circumstances of the person and aren't reflective of their thoughts about things "in general."
That said, there are two topics of this question: the general and the specific.
The general question is both easier to ask and much harder to answer. How /are/ things for black people in silicon valley? That's a big question for anyone - much less a single person who spends most of their time living life and not doing ethnographic surveys of black people in silicon valley. This is the question that people don't like being asked because they are constantly being asked to stand in for huge, diverse sections of the population. How has it felt when people ask you how the "tech industry" feels about its reputation in San Francisco?
The specific version of the question is, "How are things for you in silicon valley?" It doesn't mention being black, because obviously the person you're asking is black and they'll be answering it as such. That is a question we can all answer and are generally happy to answer - because we can just answer for ourselves and not for everyone is is "like" us in some way. It is also an answer that is almost entirely about the person answering the questions, though obviously it will reflect their experience with race in some way.
So to answer your question about how to learn - seek out people who have chosen to give their answer to the general question in public and use that information to inform your understanding of the specific answers you get from people you meet. Keep in mind that the general answers are always wide and generalize, while specific answers focus on the circumstances of the person and aren't reflective of their thoughts about things "in general."