For individual humans, that works. Applying that opinion to society at large is at the core of the social justice philosophy, but in my opinion is misguided.
When people are focused on the past, they aren’t focused on the future. It becomes a never-ending argument over history, trying to divvy up blame and virtue and money among people who weren’t even present at the time the evilness happened and who themselves have a mixed heritage.
Should students whose parents arrived from China in the 80s be discriminated against so that you can discriminate in favor of someone whose parents arrived from Kenya in the 80s? There are a zillion scenarios like that, and when you add them up they aren’t the edge cases, the complexity is the normal case. America is a place of immigration and mixing.
History is history. A lot of it is bad. You can only fix the future, and a never-ending argument about history isn’t going to do that. We know discrimination based on race is bad. If an individual needs help, help them regardless of race.