Now I'm confused whether my observing patterns of behaviour and recurring beliefs clustered among people from my own part of the world are in fact racism or bigotry. Am I being indecent? Am I self-hating? Are others tolerhating? I only wish some white night would unambiguously tut-tut me or else give me a pass.

You're perhaps being parochial. If you lived in some other part of the world, are you sure you wouldn't observe something similar?

I've lived in four countries on three continents, from third world to first world, and human behavior is pretty constant across all of them.

Your comment assumes, a priori, that the stereotypes are in fact "unfair". I don't know enough about cybercrime rates per capita amongst Eastern Europeans vs. other populations to be able to say if it is actually an unfair stereotype, but it is an indisputable fact (supported by virtually every jurisdiction that tracks crime rates by things like national origin, ethnicity, etc.) that there are population level differences in crime rates.

I don't think a person saying Eastern European are observed doing something more than expected is inherently racist. It is a claim he either does or doesn't have evidence for.

If he made the claim with insufficient evidence or made the claim in contradiction of the evidence, then it becomes racist, but I don't think making the observation and doing the calculation is the racist part. It is a simple chi-squared goodness-of-fit test.

I’m eastern-ish european, is it even racist to say that tech talent in the region is through the roof but for various accidents of history, the best opportunities available to talented people are in cybercrime (both sides)?

Not everyone has a hundred tech unicorns in their back yard. I think my country (Slovenia) produced one in its entire history so far and even that was mostly in the US

It's racism when it's (a) racially motivated, (b) not a correct fact.

In this case the person is itself a member of the group, and the statement they made isn't even a generalization to the group at large - just an observation about certain common tendencies seen in it.

"observation about certain common tendencies" is literally what generalization is.

Racist remarks against your own people is worse, because not only does it perpetuate discrimination against a group by advancing a narrative about the group ("should we hire from this subgroup prone to x?"), it gives the bigots yet another vector ("even they themselves say it about their subgroup, so it must be true!")

We're on an international forum. Making "observations" like what the original commenter did can only decrease employment opportunities for an already geographically disadvantaged talent. Why do that?

There can be other valid perspectives than your own. Not everyone is going to agree with your specific definition of what's racism or bigotry or whatever, and not only is that OK, but it's expected, and we shouldn't try to change other people's minds unless they asked for our opinion. There was especially no need to inject this discussion into the middle of an unrelated thread.

Trying to tell people their way of thinking is incorrect just because they disagree with you, is not only childish, but such dogmatic thinking is going to alienate you from a large part of society if you cannot learn to get along with people without constantly trying to correct everyone who you think is "wrong."

>"observation about certain common tendencies" is literally what generalization is

I know. Are you maybe confused? I qualified it that it's not generalization "to the group at large". Not that it's not any kind of generalization at all.

>Racist remarks against your own people is worse, because not only does it perpetuate discrimination against a group by advancing a narrative about the group ("should we hire from this subgroup prone to x?"), it gives the bigots yet another vector ("even they themselves say it about their subgroup, so it must be true!")

Oh, come on. ranger_danger put it perfectly "There can be other valid perspectives than your own. Not everyone is going to agree with your specific definition of what's racism or bigotry or whatever, and not only is that OK, but it's expected, and we shouldn't try to change other people's minds unless they asked for our opinion.".