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by culi 1647 days ago
I'm not taking a stance on either side of this, but the fact that he's Bengali-American doesn't somehow mean he can't be a scientific racist. (Btw by "Scientific racism" I'm talking about the pseudoscience movement)

I'd suggest you take a look at some of his work yourself and make a judgement of how unscientific he really is:

https://vdare.com/letters/vdare-khan-letter-and-sailer-reply...

Here's a paragraph for instance (trust me reading it in context doesn't make it any better)

> Also, I am not sure the blonde preference is as dominant among people from Asia as it is among Europeans, and Asians have not been as culturally dominated by Europeans as Amerindians have. Though certain European features were traditionally praised by Asians (fair skin), others have not been emulated (large noses, reputed body odor due to diet, hirsute body, etc.). In addition, though Japanese may comment on the nice figures that European women have (i.e., Europeans tend to exhibit more sexual dimorphism), they will also comment that many American women are too large and, as they would say in the States, "big-boned." In other words, even if blondeness is preferred by Eurasians, there are other attributes that work against them (their size in comparison to petite Asian women, the perception by many Asians that European women, and Europeans in general, age faster and don't keep their appearance up after the bloom of youth, etc.).

2 comments

> I'm not taking a stance on either side of this, but the fact that he's Bengali-American doesn't somehow mean he can't be a scientific racist.

Given that Bangladesh has one of the lowest average IQs in the world, that suggests a strong motivation for Kahn not to make assertions lightly.

The paragraph you point to is blunt, but not “racist” and not inconsistent with what I’ve heard in “just among us Asians” conversations. (You’re very sheltered if you think it’s controversial to point out that East Asians think that Americans are fat and age quickly.)

What is that paragraph indented to demonstrate? It looks like he making a decent point using generalities as examples.