My focus is his assertion that white supremacy doesn't apply to him because he thinks Asians are the smartest. I noted that Asians are only 6% of the US population and 15% of the non-white US population, so he's is still viewing about 85% of the non-white population within the US as inferior to his own racial group. I would argue that racial supremacy dogma is largely rooted in an effort to gain advantage ones own group over outgroup members that one is in societal competition with. So, he's still advancing a self-serving racial supremacy dogma, and throwing one small minority group a bone does not meaningfully change that. Also, I suspect that most white supremacist with this concession to Asians likely view Asians as genetically inferior in other ways that make their net value as humans lower.
Do you believe anybody believes that there are racial IQ differences for non self-serving reasons?
Not likely. There is no valid evidence to draw such a conclusion. It is possible to reach unreasonable conclusions by honest error, but such errors would be random. The psuedo-science arguments offered require a high level of systematic bias, lying about facts of history and basic social science, and general intellectual dishonesty always in favor of a particular conclusion. This strongly supports that anyone who advances such ideas are motivated by self-serving bias without any regard for actual reason and fact on the matter.
Also, it is an implausible coincidence that almost every person who believes in racial differences in intelligence belongs to a racial group that fares better than most under their theory.
In addition, a person without such a self serving bias would have no motive to ignore the scientific consensus on this question, which is that there is no valid evidence to support claims of innate differences in intelligence between racial groups, and that the few researchers who push such a claim are analogous to the few that push climate change denial and even evolution denial.
When you say this person threw a minority group 'a bone', why do you think it was that group and not some other group?
Because that group performs better than whites on IQ tests, and they want to promote averages in IQ tests are clear evidence of differences in innate intellectual ability. That is b/c whites perform better on average than all non-white groups other than Asians. So accepting Asians as the smartest is just a way of treating IQ scores as definitive evidence that his own race is smarter than the groups that 85% of non-whites in the US belong to.
Do you think it's possible for someone to believe that East Asian groups have a higher IQ than white groups for the same reason they believe that whites have a higher IQ than other groups (that is, because that's what the evidence shows?)
They are using IQ scores to support their beliefs, but the belief is not about IQ scores but about innate intellectual ability. IQ is not a measure of innate intellectual ability, to treat it as such is to deny the relevant science on a level that is on par with creationists denial of the relevant science on evolution. IQ is a measure of a persons performance on a particular test during a single point in time. The performance is impacted by countless factors. Innate intellectual ability is one possible factor the might influence a person's performance or it might not. Innate ability only becomes a factor in performance if one is putting forth max effort and thus hitting the ceiling of one's innate ability. If I casually jog to catch a bus and miss it, I didn't miss it b/c of lack of innate ability to run. I missed it b/c I didn't put forth max effort on that task at that time. In addition, even if I tried to run my hardest, if I didn't spend my life training in order to develop my full innate potential, then my failure to catch the bus is not a reflection of my innate potential but of the trillions of things I did or didn't do which failed to develop my innate potential ability. This applies to all abilities that are not automatically fully developed regardless of environmental factors, aka almost every ability including intelligence.
So, then the question is, why would a person go to lengths to be dishonest about the actual science and deny such basic obvious facts in order to treat IQ scores as though they are evidence of racial differences in innate intelligence?
For the reasons I gave above, the most plausible answer is that doing so allows them to view their racial ingroup as superior on a highly valued trait to the majority of other groups within their society and the majority of other individuals in their society (note that even if their own IQ was slightly lower than the white average, they could have a higher IQ than most other people in the US. And most people don't know their own IQ and just presume they are above average, and believing that whites are above most non-whites would support their assumption that they are likely above most non-whites.
If a belief is self-serving, does that mean the belief is based on faulty evidence? Surely some beliefs are true and also "self-serving" (though it's a bad reason to believe something solely because it is self-serving).
Sure, you can believe something rationally on good evidence that just happens to be self serving. But that doesn't apply here b/c there is no rational basis or good evidence to support the belief that whites have more innate intelligence than all non-whites other than Asians. There is only evidence to believe that for any one of countless reasons, whites tend to perform better on IQ tests. Inferring one from the other is equivalent to inferring that if I ate a healthier breakfast than you this morning that means that I innately engage in more healthy behaviors than you do. IF there is not rational reason to believe in something, and the belief requires systematic intellectual dishonesty (as this belief does), then self-serving bias is the most likely basis for the belief. The fact that we know such a belief has a clear self serving function for almost everyone who holds the belief only provides evidence for what is theoretically the most probable explanation for the belief.
If somebody said "Asians, as a group, have a higher IQ that whites, but Jews have the highest intelligence of all", what would your reaction be? Would that person be a white supremacist?
Jews are less than 2% of the US population, so that would do nothing to alter the arguments I've made. The same self serving factors behind accepting Asians as more intelligent (the motive being to treat IQ scores as equivalent to innate intelligence) would apply. The fact that Jews are not "non-white" would make that belief even less problematic for someone seeking to believe that whites are superior in intellect to the vast majority of non-whites within the US society (or any society where Asians and Jews represent a minority of non-whites).