Nerds, the Aryan Elite: UPDATED!

I'm not sure what to do with this article in the New York Times Magazine: "Who’s a Nerd, Anyway?". Apparently some linguist at the University of California wrote a paper on what defines nerds. The title is revealing: "The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness". Basically she claims that "Nerdiness ... is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior" because "nerds tend to act in ways that are ... 'hyperwhite'". Their main means of expressing "hyperwhiteness" is verbally, because nerds "punctiliously adhere to Standard English". This is in contrast to the cool white kids who "use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English".

Um, okay. So it's a racial thing? Does this mean that no other culture has nerds, except white Anglophonic culture? Funny, I thought Japan was rife with them.

Anyhow, where this linguist ends up is the most absurd place of all:

On the other hand, the code of conspicuous intellectualism in the nerd cliques Bucholtz observed may shut out “black students who chose not to openly display their abilities.” This is especially disturbing at a time when African-American students can be stigmatized by other African-American students if they’re too obviously diligent about school. Even more problematic, “Nerds’ dismissal of black cultural practices often led them to discount the possibility of friendship with black students”...

Ah, yes. The reason so many black kids don't do well in school is that the "hyperwhite" nerds exclude them from their intellectual clique, depriving them from any chance of educational improvement. Because, you see, nerds are constantly approached by the cool street-talking black kids with offers of camaraderie, but the nerds (elitist bigots!) will not sully their tongues with Ebonics and so shun them.

Yeah, I don't live in that world either.

UPDATE: Here's a response to the article cited above: "Hyperwhite?". It's politely scathing.

Dr. Bucholtz could easily have ascertained the facts about the racial diversity of nerds by walking around Berkeley's campus and crossing the threshold of any of the "hard-science" departments. Instead, it appears that her "research" consisted of watching dated Hollywood movies that poke fun at socially-inept white nerds.

Ouch!