I see what you mean. To a point, they're right that European colonialism shaped our modern world. However, it wasn't universally bad and it doesn't change the fact that minorities and non-white nations made their own deliberate contributions that aided European colonialism. I know you understand that, I'm just saying I would tell them that. I have too, both online and offline!
Also, the "Evil Colonialism" mythos is built on the false idea that had the roles been reversed, had North America or Africa gotten the 100 year technological edge over Europe, the exact same things would not have happened, that North American Indians would not have sailed East, found a "new world" and claimed it.
The same things would have happened , just to different people. There still would have been colonization, slavery, exploitation of resources, mass death from pestilence that would have found a group of people with no resistance to it, etc etc etc
There would be no Noble Conquerors any more than there were(n't) Noble Savages
The first group to figure out how to cross oceans and land on a new shore equipped with cannons and muskets that were a century ahead of the weapons of the indigenous peoples were going to end up ruling it. It was the natural state of everyone alive at that time for stronger nations to inevitably rise to dominance and absorb weaker ones through bargaining or by the sword for no other reason than they could.... the concept of human rights as we know them now
didn't exist. "All men are created equal" "inaliable rights" "the meek shall inherit the Earth" "Do unto others" the most basic tenets of classic JudeoChristian/Enlightenment ethics? Forget it, NONE of that existed, if you had started talking about that, people would have looked at you funny, and then knocked you over and looted you because obviously you're an easy mark who won't fight back, spouting stuff like that.... everyone equal, p'shaw, If we were equal, then how come I'm stronger than you? huh?
The modern concept of the right of nations to live as independent and sovereign, entitled to self-determination within their borders is just that, modern. An ethos we had the luxury to develop once we likewise developed the technology for self sufficiency and free trade to accomplish for us what conquest and colonization used to. And to reflect on the excesses and downsides of the colonial model and decide it unjust for the side-effects of human misery and death, if WWII was seen as paying the final butcher's bill for the previous 200 years , then 65 million dead sure made everyone rub their eyes and decide we couldn't live like this anymore....
The 15th - 19th centuries do not compute with modern times, so the wrongs we see today in the behaviors of such cannot fairly transcend time, culture and science and be visited upon the descends of those people today in the form of ANY kind of guilt, criminal, social, economic, whatever, none of it is fair or logical. Were the actions of the great powers at the time Good? Bad? Irrelevant, that's what, it wasn't on the books as a crime back then and even if it were, the statute of limitations are up
The Age of Exploration and Empires was always gonna come and go no matter how many times you rewind human history, even to the very beginning, and let it play over and over again. Someone was gonna be the Empire and everyone else was gonna be the subjects. It's an unavoidable stage to get to where we are today where nobody with a sane and rational mind thinks it
should happen again.
You can't learn from mistakes until you make them
And if you won't be forgiven for learning to do better, then why would a sane person try?
Modern racial politics and the idea of inherited racial/national guilt is a world where you get punished for falling off a bike as you learn to ride it, and once you do learn, you get punished for that time you fell off. Oh, and if you just put the bike away and say "fuck this" now you get punished for falling off AND trying to "hide" it. And if you never once picked up the bike and even tried? Well, you're on the hook for all those times your Grandpa fell off.....