How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?

The consensus says "biological race doesn't exist". But if race doesn't exist, how do we justify affirmative action, cultural appropriation, and all our other race-related practices? The consensus says that, although race doesn't exist biologically, it exists as a series of formative experiences. Black children are raised by black mothers in black communities, think of themselves as black, identify with black role models, and face anti-black prejudice. By the time they're grown up, they've had different experiences which give them a different perspective from white people. Therefore, it’s reasonable to think of them as a specific group, “the black race”, and have institutions to accommodate them even if they’re biologically indistinguishable.

I thought about this while reading A Professor Claimed To Be Native American; Did She Know She Wasn’t? (paywalled), Jay Kang's New Yorker article on Elizabeth Hoover. The story goes something like this (my summary):

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-should-we-think-about-race-and