> Why is this post being penalized? Too many black folks commenting and up voting? (/s)

That's a nasty swipe, "/s" or no "/s". Your question is answered twice in HN's FAQ: once at the top and once again ("Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?") for people who don't realize that it was already answered at the top. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Matter of fact, this thread has been carefully unpenalized by moderators who work tirelessly to support substantive, thoughtful discussion on HN. (Edit: that seems to have been a mistake—not about the thread, a lot of which was reasonably good and some of which was remarkably good, albeit on a tired topic. But it seems to have been a mistake about the article—see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26507622.)