End Affirmative Action Now

I became an adult well into the apartheid era, towards its demise. This short essay is not about the merits or otherwise of the policy of separate development, that's an argument for another day and many people hold strong views on either side of the debate.

Related:
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Does Anyone Really Believe In Affirmative Action?
AA, BEE - and the Stalinist implementation

What I want to focus on is the premise given by the international community and anti-apartheid activists for decades that discriminating on the basis of race was bad. Racism = bad. All racism must go. No ifs, ands or buts. "Every human being," they proclaimed loudly, "must be judged on the content of their character and not the colour of their skin".

Since the end of apartheid however, it seems not all racism is considered bad. In fact, certain forms of racism is good, positive for society. Racism that promotes the "previously disadvantaged" on the basis that historically a group had been discriminated against is acceptable. That the policy has an obvious flaw in that it fails to determine whether all members of a group had been equally discriminated against or whether the group previously benefiting had all equally shared in the "spoils" does not factor into the equation to receive preferential treatment (or punishment).

Transformation has come to mean what you did to us, now we're going to do it to you.

During the Nat era, the term used was "separate but equal development". Today, it is "transformation". Society must 'transform' to reflect the demographics. In order to achieve that, we must overlook obviously more qualified candidates simply because they have the wrong skin hue and replace them with people of lesser skills to balance out the numbers. That no one knows how to end it or what to do when the quota has been met is not debated. Indeed, it has been said many times that the process is open-ended until "every black has a job".

Newsflash to the ANC: no workforce on earth mirrors its demographics. If apartheid had never existed, the workforce would still not be represented along racial lines. Indians are a good example. Despite being under the same severe apartheid restrictions as blacks, the Indian population is disproportionately represented in the workforce prospering during apartheid - and since despite enduring another round of discrimination.

At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves something. Will quotas, affirmative action or positive racial discrimination advance or worsen the post-apartheid mentality and race prejudices? The answer is no. It has had a negative effect on relations between the races, engendered enormous resentment, cost the country immeasurable skills and resources, led to a brain drain, a collapse in basic standards in all spheres of society, the opposite effect with regards to racial harmony. Attitudes have hardened.

It leaves me as a white South African wondering whether the black bank teller I'm looking at (say), got his job on merit or because of a quota. Possibly he may have been the best qualified for the job but the mere fact that most blacks are shoe-horned into positions where they do not belong by virtue of their skin hue casts a shadow of doubt over every black. When blacks fail to succeed because they weren’t qualified in the first place, it only reinforces negative prejudices about them.

We need to remove the shadow. We must remove all race-based quotas and considerations if we really want to end racism. Let everyone rise and fall on their own efforts. The time to end affirmative action is now. The country simply cannot sustain it.