Hmm, I dunno. What you were saying before was a little reductionist... It's why I don't really like the word "representation", it gives off the wrong idea; unless I'm writing it myself, nothing can "represent" me and I don't expect it to. Sure, people like to relate, everyone does, sometimes! And when you never really get to, you may come off as unnecessarily desperate to people who have never really lacked it.
But the desire for diversity in stories is so much more nuanced than "make this like me"... it's more about hearing a wider variety of stories, seeing a wider variety of things. You can get those by tapping into experience and knowledge of a wide variety of people, both characters and creatives.
Creativity spans so much further than what usually gets the spotlight. Deities can be portrayed differently from Greek gods (not all pantheons are horny and ignorant LOL), there can be fun stories outside of America, etc. etc.. Why would that not extend to the ethnicity and culture of a character, and how their background informs their stories? How their culture might inform their design? How their skin color affects color design?
