you may reply "Well, but it's technically correct, even if did turn out (unlikely/no idea) the correlation only exists because race predicts/includes poverty/culture/social customs, which in turn causally [e|a]ffect IQ", while she would say "But then it's not race!".

I agree that there are a handful of valuable points one can make about the underlying causal diagrams. Suppose the diagram is X<-Y->Z: then the correlation between X and Z is indirect and acausal, where we should not expect that modifying X or Z will modify the other one. If the diagram is instead X->Y->Z, then the correlation between X and Z is indirect but modifying X may modify Z.

I disagree that those subtle points are the ones under discussion. It seems to me that this discussion is indirectly about the social acceptability of noticing the correlation between race and IQ, and that the technical points are used mostly for obfuscation. Suppose we were uncertain which of the two causal diagrams I described above were correct; we would still be certain that X and Z were correlated if Y is unmeasured, because that is the case in both causal diagrams, and responding to the claim that X and Z are correlated with "we don't know if X causes Y or Y causes X" is irrelevant.

Since there is no scientific consensus on race when poverty/culture/social customs have all been controlled for, we shouldn't speculate and rather work on the latter confounders, which can probably be improved with socially acceptable policies.

When I read "there is no scientific consensus," it sounds like "but there's still a chance, right?"

I would agree that it's easier to intervene in wealth, culture, and customs than intelligence, and that we already know of several obvious ways where interventions in those three can positively impact intelligence. I don't think Epiphany and I would agree on what interventions are most beneficial there, but that's a separate conversation that's not worth having here.