South Africans grapple with ‘race’ in affirmative action

A proposal that ‘race’ be stripped out of affirmative action policies has had a lukewarm response.

Steven Friedman, a visiting political science professor at Rhodes University, said the idea was ‘silly’ as the whole point of the programme was to deal with discrimination.
This follows the suggestion by the Congress of the People (Cope) that a means test should apply to affirmative action and empowerment policies – in effect that race should not be a criterion, but class.
Friedman said Cope was clearly not going for the vote of black management and black business people.
Tsakani Matshazi, the president of the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa (Abasa), said the dire shortage of skills, particularly in accounting, ‘is real’. Talent had to be sourced from the black population, which was under-represented in this.
‘One need only look at statistics on the fraction of the national income that is attributable to black people, the representation of black people in the … growing pool of unemployed poor people and the declining level of black ownership on the JSE to see the need for a focused programme to empower black people,’ said Abasa.
However, Brait economist Colen Garrow said the debate about affirmative action needed to be encouraged.
Garrow said that, in troubled times, ‘we need to fight for the inclusion of people in the economy more than ever before’.
Friedman said it was premature to suggest black empowerment policies were no longer relevant after just 14 years of democracy. ‘It is not realistic,’ Friedman said.
Tony Ehrenreich, Cosatu’s Western Cape regional secretary, said he agreed with Cope that white youngsters from poor backgrounds should get opportunities. Affirmative action, however, was needed to correct a systemic imbalance ‘at an aggregate level, not at an individual level’.- Business Report