They would be, but their affect would be insignificant. Racism isn’t just a sentiment, it’s a whole system that puts one group in clear societal advantage over another. Jeong is so far down the privilege ladder (being a woman and an Asian American) that whatever she says can’t possibly carry the same weight of a white person saying whatever in return.

But that aside, the issue with Stephens is that he made a pro-eugenics argument. It’s racist in nature yes, but not in the same way an off-hand comment about a group of people on social media is. The key difference between Jeong and Stephens is that the latter clearly premeditated a lot of aspects of their statements. Jeong published no such “Asian Americans are genetically predisposed to be smarter” piece on the NYT, so I’m puzzled to see why you brought her up at all.