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Ann and Malik tend to assume that all whites have benefited significantly from racial discrimination. How might we show that this is or is not true? Ask yourself what information we need in order to decide the question. Malik usually refers back to the experience of blacks in the south where they were a large part of the population and the gains from discrimination are obvious. What about the states where the black population has been quite small? Did whites in those states benefit significantly? If not, how does this influence arguments about compensation?

There are other times when Malik speaks as though this entire approach is ill-conceived because it constantly tries to analyze problems at the level of harms and benefits to individual people. He sometimes argues that we should think in terms of blacks and whites as groups without trying to prove harm or benefit to this or that person. This approach raises different questions: "What does it mean to harm or benefit a set of people as a group?" "Can members of groups be eligible for benefits or liable for payments that are not closely connected with them as individuals?"