Assault no. 2

[Montmorency]

I don't see how it cancels the fact that his (presumably) black/arab student excelled in maths and he willingly admitted it.

It's not relevant to the issue. Here's an example closer to home: "I know and work with Tatars. Some of them are my friends. However, I do believe that as a people they are 'less civilized and cultured' than us Slavs".

Tatar here is interchangeable with any other Soviet ethnic group, including ostensibly "white" Georgians and Armenians.. Of course, at the apex you have, say, Muscovite Russians, who look down on everyone, including Belorussians and Ukrainians.

Interestingly, there is such a hierarchy within the Jewish world: Bukharan Jews are considered by Ashkenazi (ex-Soviet) Jews to be primitive or savage, "closer to Muslims than to Jews".

All of this is not strictly racism according to the streamlined definition I offered, but the point was simply to show that the quote you presented has no bearing on the matter in any particular way. In fact, this is exactly what many rightists leverage to accuse leftists of harboring racist attitudes toward their "protected populations".