[mck8]

It seems likely that k33n's opinion regarding racism in the world is, like most opinions, based largely on personal observations and experiences rather than a careful consideration of all available data. He does not observe racism to be a significant problem and thus concludes that racism is not prevalent or relevant today. You argue that k33n's race is irrelevant to his reasoning.

Both of you are incorrect. We have two hypotheses: racism either is or is not a relevant problem. And, we have that k33n does not observe much racism. We (and k33n) should update our beliefs based on the ratio P(k33n does not observe racism|racism is not relevant)/P(k33n does not observe racism|racism is relevant). The value of this ratio depends on k33n's race. If k33n is white, he's unlikely to observe much racism in either case, and the ratio's value is close to 1. If k33n is black, he's much more likely to not observe racism if racism is not prevalent, so the ratio's value is high and useful for updating beliefs.

You're also arguing that we ought not conclude that someone cannot understand racism simply because they are white. I agree with you, but I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is that k33n is white and seems to glibly conclude that racism isn't a real problem. He couldn't have reached this conclusion by looking at statistics because, as you know, the statistics push you toward the opposition conclusion. So, he probably came to this conclusion because he observed that racism isn't a problem for him personally. In doing so, he was being unreasonable and somewhat callous.