Well, I care about it. I've been watching this exchange, and believe that your original comment, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20383146 , incorrectly describes the issue, and that the explanations you give for why "some people think pointing out that IQ for blacks is lower is a racist statement and others do not think it's a racist statement" are both something that a racist - perhaps different racists - might agree with.

Your first point:

> If you believe IQ is completely genetic, then a statement that more blacks have a lower IQ can be seen as racist against blacks.

The evidence is that parts of what is measured in an IQ test is indeed genetic. There are people with genetic problems which, for example, make those people unable to advance beyond the mental skills of a baby.

However, there is no evidence that whatever it is that an IQ test measures has any association with the genetics of black skin, and the evidence against a causative relationship continues to grow.

Bear in mind that the genetic diversity of people with black skin is much higher than that of people with white skin, and the genetics show a "white race" is NOT a meaningful genetic concept.

Your second point:

> if you believe IQ is malleable (fixable to some extent), then the statement that more blacks have a lower IQ can be seen as a lambasting of the system, and empathy towards the black community.

As codezero pointed out, the question that must be addressed first is, is IQ testing meaningful, and if so, what does it measure?

A large body of evidence shows that IQ testing was developed alongside "scientific racism", and definitely used as part of the American eugenics programs. There's also a long line of justified complaints that many of the tests were "Eurocentric", and not just in knowledge of facts but also on how it relates to certain cultural viewpoints.

As a result, most of the people who make an argument based on IQ, rather than economic inequality or systemic racism, are on shaky grounds to start with, so must make a much harder effort to justify their arguments - something that Raymond hasn't done. As he styles himself an anthropologist, he must surely know the issues. His interpretation, as best as I can tell, is that there's a conspiracy against talking about the truth.

My own interpretation is that he's wrong, and that "the truth" is mostly an expression of racist beliefs combined with cherry-picked information and misinterpreted statistics.

Going back to how you "explained why ... others do not think it's a racist statement."

Do you agree that a racist might make a racist comment and not think it's racist? So your clarification might be completely correct, but still describe an expression of a racist viewpoint.

The most influential anti-vaxxer don't say that vaccination should be banned. They instead "caution" about unexpected consequences, and big-pharma coverups, and the like.

The most influential racists no longer cry out "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever".

Raymond has a long history of saying things that a racist would agree with, and it's much more likely that your interpretation of his non-rascist intent is not correct.

For example, "bullets slathered in pork fat", mentioned in another subthread of this discussion, is a not uncommon xenophobic phrase. The bullet is to kill Muslims, and the pork fat alludes to religious prohibitions on eating pork. The phrase is constructed to imply that Muslims should be killed, and desecrated in such a way they cannot enter heaven. It's also based on a false understanding of Islam.

(It also echoes complaints by both Muslims and Hindus in India about cultural suppression during the rule of the British East Indian Company. The grease for the Enfield P-53 rifle cartridges could contain beef and pork tallow, which was offensive to soldiers who were adherents of either religions. This helped lead to Indian Rebellion of 1857.)

The quote comes from Raymond's comment on NadaNet, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20090624235730/http://www.catb.o... . NadaNet was "a network of hackers formed to support the democratic revolution in Iran. Our mission is to help the Iranian people by setting up networks of proxy severs, anonymizers, and any other appropriate technologies that can enable them to communicate and organize — a network beyond the censorship or control of the Iranian regime."

He also wrote on that page "I already got my jihadi death threat from Iran in 2006 before NedaNet" which is itself odd as, quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihadism "The term jihadist is almost exclusively used to describe Sunni extremists". Yet "90–95% of Iranians associate themselves with the Shia branch of Islam, the official state religion, and about 5–10% with the Sunni and Sufi branches of Islam" says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iran .

I don't know what that death threat was, but characterizing it as 'jihadi' when coming from Iran seems based in ignorance - which is something that a racist would easily do but something any anthropologist deserving of the description should know to avoid.