Buthelezi slams affirmative action

Nobody signed up for another racist government, how did we end up with this one?

we had a war to get away from demographics and similar policies, and here we are, back again. I mean, did we really go anywhere?
 
dlk001 : But BEE isn't really helping the people it was meant to help. Its not helping this country, its not helping the citizens, all sorts of things like that.

Money that is spent on frivolous things like renaming cities, and roads etc could be MUCH better spent on beefing up the education system, both normal school and the Adult Education platform. Granted it would talk longer to sort out the inequalities that Apartheid introduced into our society, but at the end of the day EVERYONE would benefit as opposed to a select few, and the country would be much much stronger for it. I know i'm a pale male, and BEE really affects me in a big way, I do absolutely love this country and it tears me up inside to see what is being done to its economy in the name of rapid transformation, which I feel will fall apart sooner rather than later.
 
Toxic, I do agree with some aspects of your second paragraph. In fact, my thinking is; “Broad Based Education Empowerment” should have received the same seriousness (if not more) that BEE and AA is getting. I do not agree that BEE is necessary a failure.

Back to the core issue of this topic, AA. I said it depends who you are asking because if you asked me, my views will be based on my experience as a Black person and that of my discussions with my friends and colleagues.
 
dlk001 : Ok, granted different view points from different experiences. I am not entirely sure BEE is a failure or a success as of yet, but I do think its been implemented entirely in the wrong fashion and has been massively abused.

Yeah, I spose from a Black persons point of view AA is a good thing, and again while I don't deny that it has its place and can be used effectively, it just seems to have been implemented entirely incorrectly and also abused in a bad way.

I work in an Web-Dev company, where the majority of the developers are black, and they've worked their asses off and are very good at what they do, and (yes i'm biased) I think AA was implemented correctly where I work...
 
People with the correct skills are hired for one, but also there has been a drive for mentorship, so learners are hired and mentored into positions of responsibility. Yes its probably taken 3 or 4 years as opposed to 1 to get the right "mix" but everyone knows everyone else can do their jobs properly...
 
ToxicBunny said:
dlk001 : Ok, granted different view points from different experiences. I am not entirely sure BEE is a failure or a success as of yet, but I do think its been implemented entirely in the wrong fashion and has been massively abused.
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I work as a consultant in civils and mining field. There are very few skills in my field regardless of any race. Its very hard to find suitable AA candidates so my company has no choice but train as many as we can. At the same time, we need to survive as a business entity, so we have no choice but hire the pale and experienced people. So, at this point, having our staff to be representative of SA demographics may look inconceivable but hopefully the skills transfer will happen. It takes time, patience and a buy-in from all staff.

What compounds the problem is that a few of my highly experienced work collegues have emigrated to Australia and Canada. The reasons are mostly the emerging mining opportunities there, the salaries offered and the safe environment that exists there relative to SA.

On a light note. My friend in Toronto just told me now that he misses the cold castle beer in SA because every beer there, at this time, is significantly warmer than the air outside. He tells me, they even have an emergency number to call if you see some idiot outside who looks like he shouldn't be there.
 
ToxicBunny said:
People with the correct skills are hired for one, but also there has been a drive for mentorship, so learners are hired and mentored into positions of responsibility. Yes its probably taken 3 or 4 years as opposed to 1 to get the right "mix" but everyone knows everyone else can do their jobs properly...
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I don't agree with the policy on principle but if it has to be done that's the way it should be done.
 
icyrus said:
Stupidity. Hire the best person for the job. Race is meaningless and should be treated as such. The constant re-enforcement of racial differences will eventually doom this country to failure.
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The country was doomed to failure for the past 500 years. The constant re-enforcement of racial differences of the past has left us with real problems. Sometimes you have to take a very bitter pill in order to kickstart the process of recovery from an illness. I view AA as one of those pills, very bitter but extremely potent if taken religiously.
 
kilo39 said:
Defending racist regulations and policies. Isn't that just the most diabolical thing.
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I wouldn't be defending it if it was not denfensible. Historical economic and social disparity is a form of discrimination which is caused by past racism, affecting the present generation through deficits in the formal education and kinds of preparation in the parents' generation, and, through unconscious racist attitudes and actions on members of the previously priviledged population.
 
The red pill, blue pill or yellow pill?

Bageloo said:
The country was doomed to failure for the past 500 years. The constant re-enforcement of racial differences of the past has left us with real problems.
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But racial differences are still being perpetuated :confused:
Bageloo said:
Sometimes you have to take a very bitter pill in order to kickstart the process of recovery from an illness. I view AA as one of those pills, very bitter but extremely potent if taken religiously.
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Well then, they've got the prescriptions wrong for those pills, cause I was considered Coloured under the old government. Tell me, what medication should I take? I am of Chinese descent, but 3rd generation South African born...

Screwed over by the old government, and screwed over by the new...:eek:
 
ryan411 said:
But racial differences are still being perpetuated :confused:

Well then, they've got the prescriptions wrong for those pills, cause I was considered Coloured under the old government. Tell me, what medication should I take? I am of Chinese descent, but 3rd generation South African born...

Screwed over by the old government, and screwed over by the new...:eek:
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Screwed over by the old government, YES. Screwed over by the new, NO. How do you classify yourself? The EEA1 form calls for voluntary self-classification on the part of the employee. If an employee is "mixed race", the designation he/she volunteers must be used. If the employer must make the choice, he/she is advised to put the employee in the "designated group" category - in other words, black.
 
icyrus said:
Stupidity. Hire the best person for the job. Race is meaningless and should be treated as such. The constant re-enforcement of racial differences will eventually doom this country to failure.
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Best person for the job won't work, considering the average IQ of some races:D
 
Bageloo said:
I wouldn't be defending it if it was not denfensible. Historical economic and social disparity is a form of discrimination which is caused by past racism, affecting the present generation through deficits in the formal education and kinds of preparation in the parents' generation, and, through unconscious racist attitudes and actions on members of the previously priviledged population.
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And after however many years they decide to do this little experiment for, do you really believe that South Africa will be completely equal and there will be no racial tension? That is a pipe dream.

Continued racial classification - no matter how well intentioned - will increase racial tensions and discord rather then reduce it. I don't know how many times I have to say this before it gets through.

Bageloo said:
Screwed over by the old government, YES. Screwed over by the new, NO. How do you classify yourself? The EEA1 form calls for voluntary self-classification on the part of the employee. If an employee is "mixed race", the designation he/she volunteers must be used. If the employer must make the choice, he/she is advised to put the employee in the "designated group" category - in other words, black.
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What if a white person classifies themselves as black? Then what? How do you determine "whiteness"?
 
icyrus said:
And after however many years they decide to do this little experiment for, do you really believe that South Africa will be completely equal and there will be no racial tension? That is a pipe dream.
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Just because a state of equality can never be achieved does not mean that we must ignore the current state of inequality. I work in a field of risk management. There is something in this field called residual risk or acceptable level of risk. The fact that you cannot eliminate risk completely should not be a reason not to engage in risk mitigating activities. It's the same with crime level. We are forever complaining against unacceptable levels of crime. Will we ever have zero crime incidents? That's another pipe dream perhaps. But it should not stop us on our efforts to reduce crime levels.

icyrus said:
Continued racial classification - no matter how well intentioned - will increase racial tensions and discord rather then reduce it. I don't know how many times I have to say this before it gets through.
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So long as the majority blacks are not equal participants in the economic activities of the country, there can be no racial harmony. How many white employers would implement AA out of the goodness of their hearts. Well it takes legislation for employers to realise there's a inequality within their workforce.

icyrus said:
What if a white person classifies themselves as black? Then what? How do you determine "whiteness"?
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I quote form my previous post
If the employer must make the choice, he/she is advised to put the employee in the "designated group" category - in other words, black.
Click to expand...
 
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Bageloo said:
Just because a state of equality can never be achieved does not mean that we must ignore the current state of inequality. I work in a field of risk management. There is something in this field called residual risk or acceptable level of risk. The fact that you cannot eliminate risk completely should not be a reason not to engage in risk mitigating activities. It's the same with crime level. We are forever complaining against unacceptable levels of crime. Will we ever have zero crime incidents? That's another pipe dream perhaps. But it should not stop us on our efforts to reduce crime levels.
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Well that depends on what the goal of SA is. We were told it was to build a united "rainbow" nation where everyone is equal but it seems like that is being replaced with the idea that some are more equal than others. How quickly that dream of mandela's was lost.

Bageloo said:
So long as the majority blacks are not equal participants in the economic activities of the country, there can be no racial harmony. How many white employers would implement AA out of the goodness of their hearts. Well it takes legislation for employers to realise there's a inequality within their workforce.
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The majority of blacks will be unequal participants in the economy for many generations to come. Apartheid was to blame for the current levels of uneducated masses - but who will you blame when those born after 1994 are still just as uneducated?

Bageloo said:
I quote form my previous post
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And you conveniently ignore the next question from my post:

How do you determine "whiteness"?
 
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