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Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

In case you didn't realize, that sounds incredibly racist.

I'm sure he does realize. The problem is that it's possible to believe this without being racist, but not possible in the US today to say it without appearing racist. It's one of the more obvious Things You Can't Say.

I'm so concerned about appearing racist that I don't even want to post in this thread under my usual account, so I applaud yummy for his willingness to say things that need saying even though it costs him personally in status.

I don't think it's possible to believe it without being racist. I don't think it's so easy to fool your unconscious biases if that's what you believe.

Wait, why?

>Why are U.S. children so far behind in science and math compared with those in other developed countries? > >Because the US has fewer high performing Asians and more low performing Blacks/Hispanics than other developed countries. That's all there is to it.

It's impossible to believe that a certain race is doing worse on a certain standardized test than another race without being racist? That's simply a recognition of facts without judgement.

That's why I like HN. I can make a factually correct statement with conclusions that are politically incorrect and not be accused of harboring racial bias or animosity towards people of other races.

However, in the interest of honesty, I will admit to racism in one arena completely unrelated to the discussion here - I prefer dating dark skinned women to light skinned ones.

I'm still not sure how to interpret your original post. Are you claiming that the source of the achievement gap is somehow inherent in "race"? Or are you simply pointing out the correlation to race, without making claims to its source (allowing for the actual source to be something else like income level)?

I'm claiming that either race directly, or something correlated with it, explains a large amount of test score variation. And once you correct for this, the US scores very well.

Also, should have linked to this post comparing Asian Americans to Asians.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...

i think the curtness of his statement makes it easy to interpret as racist. however, it's possible to interpret his statements in a more neutral way. he isn't making any claims as to the origins of the achievement gap. e.g., it would be racist to claim that certain racial groups achieve lower because they're inherently lazy and stupid and destined to fail. but it would not be racist to claim that the causes of the achievement gaps have little to do with individuals but rather are caused by sociological and historical factors

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