You're repeating the exact same pattern with different words - connecting all men to rape, this time through masculinity. — Tzeentch

The point of invoking that example was to show that we can indeed connect a group identity to the really bad acts of a subset of that group, even without predicating the capacity to do those acts to some inherent quality of the group. Men largely have the characteristics associated with masculinity, and some of those characteristics manifest in bad things, such as rape. So, while clearly not every man is a rapist, many men possess the characteristics, to some degree, that might lead a man to rape a woman. There is a sort of continuum for many traits, which, in this case, would be some mix of physical aggression and entitlement.

This way of looking at it is even more straightforward in the case of the relationship between (the not monolithic groups of) white people and people of color:

I think this kind of analysis applies straightforwardly to white people discriminating against people of color: white people largely have a blind spot that allows for discrimination against people of color by virtue of viewing the issue the way you do: that we live in a fair society and if poor people of color cannot uplift themselves, it is due to their own choices and shortcomings. You don't have to be a raging racist to be complicit in this mechanism, and so I think it is mostly acceptable to talk about white people at large in negative ways. — ToothyMaw

As I've made clear, I don't live in the US, so my taking of responsibility has nothing to do with it. — Tzeentch

Europeans have their own extensive and continuing history of colonialism and exploitation.

To attempt to restore the victim to some status quo ante would in my opinion be even more complicated. — Sir2u

That's why clarity, in concrete terms, about everything matters. Briefly: a community can be injured as a whole - as a city subject to an artillery barrage - but the people of the city, if they're to be cured/rehabilitated at all, must be treated individually as individuals. And so with the effects of racism, slavery a species.

The general form of the remedy as it occurs to me is to provide for each individual an opportunity to recover what was taken. And again in general terms, what was taken was opportunity itself. As to just how that opportunity might be presented, I recall pictures from 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, of soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army escorting nine students into their high school. Offered, presented, enforced, but the students still had to themselves follow through. Which they did.

For those for whom opportunity is no longer a useful option, something more tailored and substantive, But at the same time the society itself to be cured so that new generations of victims aren't created - and that a problem worthy of its own thread.

The general form of the remedy as it occurs to me is to provide for each individual an opportunity to recover what was taken. And again in general terms, what was taken was opportunity itself. — tim wood

As individuals in modern times, trying to reverse in some way the injustices of racism to these people would be a long way from appeasing the horrors of the actual uprooting their ancestors. One would be a way to compensate for recent events, the other would have to address the reasons or causes of them being placed in the recent situation

I recall pictures from 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, of soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army escorting nine students into their high school. — tim wood

I remember in the late 60's having a police car following the school bus as it started its new route to pick up kids in Afro American neighborhoods as well the the white kids from theirs. None of the Afro American kids were going to the white schools so the buses had to make 2 drop-offs. It was not a comfortable situation for a teenager.

But I still remember that in the 3 schools I attended in the USA, all students and teachers were white. But there was still discrimination of many sorts. Those from old families looked down their noses at almost everyone. The reasonably well off looked down their noses at the white trash. The city dwellers, the swamp and bayou living Cajuns had different points of view. Outsiders, like my family, were welcomed mostly as long as you did not go against their way of life. I got people angry sometimes for failing to follow their rules and earned a couple of bloody noses too.

And there were still "whites only" signs in a lot of shop windows.

Personally I think that almost everyone has been discriminated against in some way or other, the universe is not a fair place. In one town in England I had to go to a different school than my best friend across the road. Just because I lived across some imaginary line I was sent to a school and lost by best mate, who can I sue?

Have you ever heard of this gentleman? Some of his words were quite prophetic, but by today's standards, racist.

https://anth1001.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/enoch-powell_speech.pdf

Ah, Mr. Powell, a vague memory of vague reference now unfortunately reanimated. Let's "x-ray" it in order to determine what if any substance is in it. The American president, Abraham Lincoln, started a speech with, "Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history." And this the lesson to be found in Powell's talk, although not explicitly made, and only slight evidence he was aware of it.

Sometimes we control history; that the luxury of many of the middle class and above of a large piece of the western world. And sometimes the imperatives of history have it run over its banks like a river at full flood devouring all in its path. This the fate and testimony of all caught by any of history's four horsemen.

At a local level, it is a foolish resistance to, denial of, change. And this lesson may be expressed as, if you play carelessly in the traffic of history, you will be run down.

To the point: the dead are dead, and unless you can make the dead laugh, reparations to them is nonsense-talk. To the living, assistance to overcome the costs of the effects of prejudice. Not a payment to assuage guilt, but a recognition that assistance, well-tailored to need, is in the long-term interests of the community itself.

the universe is not a fair place. — Sir2u

If not for the generous and more than generous gifts of the universe, where do you suppose you would be?

To the point: the dead are dead, and unless you can make the dead laugh, reparations to them is nonsense-talk. — tim wood

Agreed.

To the living, assistance to overcome the costs of the effects of prejudice. — tim wood

And how to calculate the cost of previous generation is the biggest problem, recent events might be easier.
Could the word of the affected count as evidence of their suffering compared to others? Would statistical comparisons give a better idea of the effects?
Just how far are they willing to go to call an action racial?

Afro Americans were given a lower class of education for generations, that led them to be able to perform lower paid jobs, which in turn made it impossible for them to acquire a house, this meant that they had to live in low rent neighborhoods with low quality schools and repeat the cycle in the next generation.

How far back is it possible to go and still calculate the difference that would have been made in their lives today. If an Afro American was given a good education three generations ago, would comparing that family to the rest of the Afro American population give us an idea of how bad the damage is? Or would it be better going back further or just one generation?

I have no idea how anyone could be compensated for the loss nor what assistance could be given.

If not for the generous and more than generous gifts of the universe, where do you suppose you would be? — tim wood

That is sort of like a father that has just shot one son in the stomach and the other in the head, then saying "If it was not for me, you would not be here to die."

The are millions of ways to die, but only one to get a life. That is not fair.

And how to calculate the cost of previous generation is the biggest problem, — Sir2u

Maybe this is the problem. It is called a sunk cost.

This from online:
"What Is a Sunk Cost?
"A sunk cost is an expense that cannot be recovered by additional spending or investment. Businesses should be careful to exclude sunk costs from future decisions because they will remain the same regardless of the outcome of those decisions.

"When a business or investor spends more money trying to reverse past losses, they risk succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. The expression "Don't send good money chasing after bad money" is a caution against this type of mistake."

So, if we count the possible satisfaction of the victims as bookmark for calculation, is there ever going to be a chance of breaking even. Even with monumental expenditure of time and effort I doubt that many expectations will be met.

How, for instance, could the damage done by the internment of US Japanese citizens during WW2 be in compensated any form?
If we try to figure out exactly what the present generations have lost because of that, what would we find?