To be or not to be – Affirmative Action
Thanks to this budding young journalism student Giselle that got in touch with us from Cape Town, she has an itch and asked if she can scratch it on Represent – being the citizen journalism platform we are – we said BRING IT ON – here goes…. Please give Giselle your comments.
To be or not to be… that is the question. To be black in the economic work force, recruited via aff…
irmative action (AA), what questions does this invoke? To be white in the waiting room while waiting for a job interview, when you know that the final choice of the interviewer is bound to be a decision based on AA. The question here would most probably be: “what am I doing here?”
I had a heated debate with four of my friends the other day. About, you may have figured already, the topic at hand. So there the five of us sat, in a small res room. Two on the couch, two on the bed and me, on the chair in the centre, near the door. I figured that if there was any violence involved, I could just make a swift exit.
Shane, who sat on the couch with Shereen, was most passionate about his cause for AA. “How many years have blacks been denied resources that were rightfully theirs?”
Apartheid began in the 1930’s. The black population was restricted to living all cramped up in Bantustans, while whites lived in posh houses. Their salaries allowed them luxuries that ‘native’ South Africans weren’t given the chance to dream about. At the moment the population’ sits at 75.2% being black, 13.6% are white, 8.6% are Colored and 2.6% are Indian.
This may all seem very general, but it is the sad truth of our history. On the contrary, is it fair to outright exclude whites from most of the jobs that are offered? A third year, media student asked the graduate placement office whether she has any chance of getting a job through the agency. The woman in charge sent a reply saying that the best thing for her to do is flee, because “there’s no chance in hell” that they would even be able to get her an interview with any huge company because of AA.
Emma White is an international student that has lived in England and Zimbabwe prior to coming to South Africa. Her argument is: how does being a foreign South African have anything to do with fixing the wrongs of apartheid, when her family played no role in South Africa’s history?
So I put this question forward to my friends: is AA not a form of reverse racism? AJ and Shereen agreed. Shane brought up the fact that blacks have suffered for so many years, so why not make whites suffer now. So I put forward the fact that it was not the whites of today that caused the discrimination in the past& “Well it’s their grandfathers!” he blurted out.
This past weekend I watched the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. Chick fliek, schmiek fliek, you say. But one point that made sense was this: the greek grandparents of a girl and a guy had bad feelings toward each other. Some story of his grandfather selling her grandfather bad fish… anyway. On holiday in Greece, the girl is told to stay away from him. When he realises that this is the reason why she is avoiding him he says, “So our grandfathers had problems between them, but what has that got to do with us?”
It has been eleven years after liberation from apartheid: what has apartheid got to do with us now? Of course it will take a long time for the older generations to get past the borders of the past, but that is no reason to hire people according to their skin colour. Whatever happened to getting where you want to go on merit…?
Hard work and dedication can be seen through achievements and leadership roles. If you know the work you are required to do well, then you should be hired. Education systems have changed to accommodate the “previously disadvantaged”.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme sees to it that students who cannot afford to study because a shortage of funds and show potential in their marks at school, are offered tuition, rent, a book and food allowance depending on how much their parents earn. For most of the time, some of it is returned to the student in the form of a bursary, depending on how many modules they pass. The interest on this loan is only seven percent. It is only repayable when the student begins to earn R26 300 annually. This should compensate for those who were treated wrongly in the past, don’t you think? With a university degree or a technikon diploma, there should be merit within it all. In which case, there should not be a job selection process that is based on your race.
The hate of the past seems to be catching up with South Africa now. The more that we exclude from our beautiful country, the more we miss out on learning. “I think Affirmative Action is fine, but it should stop at some point,” says Shereen. Let us hope that it is not the point of no return
Not to say that the black population is not able to achieve great things: Nelson Mandela, and all the other freedom fighters, are proof of this&but by excluding 13,6 percent of our population, are we not considering the full potential of our country.
Many whites are moving away from South Africa to “greener pastures” like: England, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where people are acknowledging their talents. In this way, are we not losing out on native South Africans?
To be miserable when pursuing ones career, or to flee and be happy when being appreciated by foreigners&Those are the options for whites in SA. To be free in the knowledge that job security will not be a problem to you (for non-whites), this is the freedom we have fought for…or is it?
FROM REPRESENT
What’s our standpoint? Well, to be honest we at Represent don’t know many white people that are unemployed or who have genuinely battled to find a job due to AA. We know a lot of Black people that have no work, no education, no houses, no hope… The few Whiteys we know of that may claim to have been ‘affected’ by AA are not particularly energetic, enthusiastic nor qualified people. AA in our world has given birth to an incredible entrepreneurial approach amongst all people, white and non-white, people are embracing the realities of it, taking responsibility (happily or unhappily) and making their own futures…But that’s Joburg for you.
