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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The downplaying of Iran’s capabilities is a weird kind of racism IMHO. In the modern view, Iranians have been categorized as “brown” so people lump them together with Somalians and Afghans. But Iran is a technologically and politically sophisticated country. In terms of the Civ tech tree, it’s higher than any middle eastern country except Israel.

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> The downplaying of Iran’s capabilities is a weird kind of racism IMHO.

Agreed, but it’s not at all surprising to me. Propaganda means that people will project fictitious motives and capabilities on their opponents, even if they are internally inconsistent (e.g. Iran must be attacked because they will threaten the USA mainland vs Iran’s missiles are very inaccurate and barely hit anything).

>Iranians have been categorized as “brown” so people lump them together with Somalians and Afghans.

Even from a racist perspective that's completely wrong; Iranians are white, the name "Iran" literally means "Land of the Aryans".

> Iranians are white, the name "Iran" literally means "Land of the Aryans".

The Indians were also Aryan according to race theories. I wouldn't put much sense into racism

Leaving the 'aryan' and 'white' bit aside there are mountains of things that are common between Indians and Iranians -- the system of classical music, musical instruments, mythological characters, food, and of course language.

Wow you just sent me through a fascinating journey through Wikipedia for a while there.

The history (and pseudoscientific justification) of racism is mind-boggling as ever.

I thought Iranians were white? I've met many Iranians that were white.

That’s what I thought, but in the modern discourse I think all Muslims are classified as non-white.

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