[temphn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime#Crimestop

  Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by   
  instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It 
  includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to 
  perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest 
  arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being 
  bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable 
  of leading in a heretical direction. 

  The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous 
  thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, 
  instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.

  He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He 
  presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the 
  earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than 
  water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not 
  understanding the arguments that contradicted them.

[ehmish]

I take it you're getting at people avoiding thinking about the thought that race might be correlated with intelligence, lest they become an awful person. And it's a fair criticism. At the same time however, it has been noted that people have a subjective bias against people not of their own race.

[mikeash]

What is the relevance of this quote?

[wonderzombie]

Race is absolutely a factor, but only insofar as white people enslaved black people, then legislated them into second class citizenship. Post-1960s, I guess we're on to blaming them (hence the stupid & lazy stereotype) because we think they should've gotten over it & recovered by now.

[thowawayanother]

I wonder what terrible things Asians did to whites such that they earn higher income, commit fewer crimes, and do better in schools than whites while living in historically white countries.