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An awful lot of people believe that low intelligence logically implies moral inferiority. That if you are unintelligent, you are a bad person. It is a moral failing to not be smarter.
Progressives seem to believe this more strongly than conservatives, and use it as one of their primary attacks against the right. If you take "stupid = bad" as an axiom, then HBD forces you to conclude that less intelligent races are bad, and progressives who don't even question the "stupid = bad" axiom automatically equate HBD with "some races are inferior". But because the "stupid = bad" axiom is unstated, and probably not consciously endorsed, they can't quite articulate this chain of reasoning. The embarrassment that would come if it were incontrovertibly proven that some races were inferior on a genetic level is that it would be revealed that they are bigots. They have always been bigots against unintelligent people, but by restricting their bigotry to unintelligent white people, manage to convince themselves that that doesn't count. But if colored people are even less intelligent, and it wasn't society's fault it was inherent to the individuals themselves and their genes, then the progressives would either have to admit to being racist, or change their worldview to account for good but unintelligent people. Who, in my opinion, exist in multitudes. I've met quite a few. But a lot of people aren't ready to admit that.
If anything it is, of course, the exact opposite. "They deserve to be at the bottom of the ladder because they are stupid" is the essential line of race conservatives. Therefore, welfare, affirmative action, criminal justice reform, etc, are a waste of time at best, and counter-productive at worst. The progressive line is "they are not stupid, so if they are at the bottom it can only be because society has placed them there." Therefore, welfare, affirmative action, criminal justice reform, etc, are necessary.
I don't think that's opposite. The progressives aren't questioning that stupid people belong at the bottom, they're tacitly agreeing that stupid people belong at the bottom and arguing that minorities are secretly intelligent if all the cultural biases didn't keep underestimating them. The argument is "they aren't stupid so they don't belong at the bottom with the stupid people", not "it doesn't matter how smart they are, they still deserve good outcomes anyway"
It does seem relevant that progressives are in favor of downward redistribution though. "The market needs to set wages based on scarce traits like intelligence, but the unintelligent should still get healthcare, free college, public housing, and childcare subsidized by redistribution from the intelligent" might imply a different moral judgement of the unintelligent than 'the unintelligent should be at the bottom and get nothing but their market wages".
I don't think I would categorize that as a "progressive" position though, that just seems like classic liberalism. Maybe with a wider reach, and an ignorance of economic incentives. But I'm not opposed to the general idea of redistribution. But the progressive position is usually that the market does not need to set wages based on scarce traits, a "wage gap" between groups is evidence of discrimination and needs to be fixed at the source. Rich people should give their money to poor people not because they are more capable and competent and thus should subsidize the less able, but because their wealth was stolen in the first place by discriminatory institutions and exploitation of the disadvantaged. The advocated policies are similar, but the justifications, and the extent of them, are very different.
Maybe I'm setting up too weak of a straw man to knock down. Obviously there are more and less extreme people along the way. But if you find someone claiming "minorities need social support because they're less capable than whites" they are going to be tarred and feathered in progressive circles as an evil Nazi, not held up as an orthodox progressive who says what they're all thinking.
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yeah, somehow lead poisoning is still holding back blacks even though whites and Asians in same environment or worse environments do better, and lead levels have been low for half a century now.
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There is no one strain of denial.
You have the people arguing IQ isn't even real. As in it can't be measured and different "types" of intelligence are totally uncorrelated with each other.
You have people arguing that IQ is real, but their is no racial IQ gap because the tests are racist.
You have people arguing that IQ is real, and seemingly admitting there is an "achievement gap" between blacks and well... everyone. But they will never utter the word intelligence, have no plan to deal with the substantial population permanently lacking in "achievement" and beyond all help. They just believe that somehow, this time, and with enough white guilt, lots and lots of tax payer money, and totally neglecting the needs of every other demographic, you can nurture all those young black geniuses into their full potential.
IMHO, given the way our institutions are continually abolishing all means of measuring competence, I think some combination of the first and second strains of denial are winning the day. Probably a majority of the first strain that disbelieves in IQ at a fundamental level. Or is so far down the "everything is a social construct" rabbit hole that they disbelieve being good at things has any relevance to whether you should be rewarded handsomely for them. Even Doctors. Because "racism".
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