I think the usual counterargument to your point is that Europeans have greatly benefited, directly or indirectly, from the conquest & colonization of Black & Brown people. I don't know how much water that argument holds, but there it is.

Sure, there were European groups that were themselves being actively colonized/conquered (eg, Ireland), but it's also true that the conditions in their home countries led many of these same peoples to seek their fortune elsewhere and to end up at the vanguard of colonization. For example, when the British were in India, there was an outsize presence of Scottish & Irish fortune seekers in the subcontinent who made out like gangbusters.

This perspective is not any better.

Try to put it into your head - most white people did not benefit from the oppression of the black people.

I did not, my ancestors did not, my countrymen did not.

I do not share any collective guilt with some American slave owners, or French colonists.

Like it was told, this policy is racist. Whoever came up with it is racist. Whoever defends it is racist.

Again, this is not my argument - just one that I've seen brought up in this context. It's also not completely wrong.

While it's possible you, your ancestors, or your countrymen did not directly or indirectly benefit a single cent from a transfer of wealth via colonialism or oppression of non-Europeans, I do honestly doubt that would be true for most people of European descent.

Nobody from east of Italy and German proto-state did not benefit from it, also Scandinavia.

If you want to include all the beneficiaries, you should include coastal Africans and all the traders including Arab and Jewish ones. Things will get messy. If you also talk about slavery then you also should not forget all the white slaves of the same time period.

I think that the most unfortunate fact about the end of American slavery was that the oppressed did not overpower the oppressors. At least not directly. As such there was no real liberation.

I have been thinking if it would have been best if all the black people would have been deported back to Africa. It would have given greater dignity that I feel is something that is really missing in the larger picture. Imagine if nobody in US was there because their ancestors were a former slave.

The world is complex.

Your argument still seems to apply only to countries with access to ocean.

(It was one of the reasons behind WW1, that Germany objected against some European countries colonizing the rest of the world, and not allowing countries such as Germany to also take a piece. And Germany lost that war. And there were other countries that were too small to participate in this kind of conflict.)

This is not my argument - just one I see come up with some regularity. I do not know how valid it is - partially, I guess.