[intimidated]

You might not agree with the spirit of this an endeavor, but I have a yes/no question for you:

If you were to wear your most clever, most creative writing cap, could you make a convincing case entirely contrary to your beliefs? I'm not asking whether you could write a convincing case against racial affirmative action, because I know you could handle that just fine.

Instead, could write a convincing case that the group you're talking about owes some collective debt to the rest of society, rather than the other way around?

[MisterBastahrd]

I used to be a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Their entire case is "it's not fair" in the absolute sense. That because some white folks descend from people who didn't have anything to do with slavery that all should be absolved from participating and benefitting from systemic racism.

It's not an intellectual argument. It's an argument from performative and wanton ignorance.

[wpietri]

For sure. My ancestors mostly came to the US well after slavery. The only one that I know didn't fought on the Union side in the civil war. But that doesn't matter, because in my life I've received the benefits of being white in America. And I think a lot of that performative and wanton ignorance is basically refusal to admit that sort of privilege born of luck.