The claim holds that opposition to reparations reflects an unexamined colonial mindset: the assumption that European judgments about what Caribbean people deserve, what remedies are appropriate, and what the correct response to historical injustice should be, take precedence over Caribbean judgments. In this framing, the very act of a British person or institution deciding that reparations are not owed is itself a re-enactment of colonial power: the former colonial power once again telling the former colony what it is and is not entitled to.
The argument is sometimes expressed as: those who benefit from colonial history are the last people whose opinion on the appropriate remedy should be decisive. Just as someone who has received stolen goods should not be the judge of whether they need to be returned, the descendants of colonial powers should not be the judges of whether colonial debts are owed.
In its strongest form, the argument holds that the entire framework within which the reparations debate takes place, legal standards, evidentiary requirements, limitation periods, and definitions of liability, is itself a product of colonial power structures designed to protect colonial interests. Applying these standards to the reparations question is therefore not neutral adjudication but a continuation of colonialism by other means.
