I think I understand what you're getting at, but I didn't intend to draw a hard line of what racism is, but merely wanted to point out the slippery slope you're of using racist policies to fix discriminatory issues.

Is it actually racist to make reparations for former wrongs that have had a direct, severely negative impact on the aggregate experiences of a group living today? Those reparations have to come from somewhere, so in most cases anyone could complain that it's "taking away" from whatever.

I don't think it is so easy to answer that question off the cuff, especially without further details.

Also, I think it is very important to remember: these situations are usually _not_ zero sum. Helping one group does not mean another group has been harmed in equal magnitude.

>Is it actually racist to make reparations for former wrongs

They are not reparations. A reparation is a material compensation for a past harm. You don't take away from a group, you take away from individuals. I can't help but think of soviet farmers that were dispossessed in the name of communism.

>Helping one group does not mean another group has been harmed in equal magnitude

Again, you don't harm groups, you harm individuals. It's something different if you take taxes, where white people happen to pay more because they earn more, and use them to improve education in areas mainly inhabited by people of color. That would actually be not zero sum. But a position at a company is a limited resource. And if one person get's the position the other person can't get it. This is very much a zero sum situation.

I do welcome actions that help marginalized groups. But the way these issues are currently handled is short-sighted, ill-conceived and unethical.

> A reparation is a material compensation for a past harm.

That's not correct. First definition on google: "the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged." Reparations are not limited to material compensation.

> You don't take away from a group, you take away from individuals.

A group is a collection of individuals. Some things happen on the individual level. Other aspects or dynamics are only present on the group level and must be analyzed there.

> But a position at a company is a limited resource. And if one person get's the position the other person can't get it. This is very much a zero sum situation.

This is correct on the specific dimension you are looking at. But you are ignoring second order effects. That job may have a significant positive effect for the marginalized individual, and then in turn have a positive ripple effect on the marginalized community that he or she comes from. This could certainly result in a positive sum situation for society as a whole.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm totally with you that this could be taken too far, and we must proceed with caution. I also agree we should try to focus on cases where the positive sum benefits are most clear. But it is a difficult problem, and I think many instances of positive sum benefits are not fully appreciated.