The notion of empowering previously disadvantaged blacks is a noble ideal, noble but racist. Let’s look at why this is so.
To adhere to BEE principles, businesses are compelled to consider the race and social background of potential applicants instead of considering an applicant’s skillset and qualifications. Race is thus a determining factor in securing employment in South Africa. It was unacceptable to have job reservation during apartheid and it is unacceptable now. Affirmative action is not empowering, it is limiting, degrading, and offensive to anyone who wants to participate in the economy but cannot simply because they are not black.
Affirmative action is discriminatory not only against a minority, it also excludes the vast majority of black South Africans from its purported benefits, since BEE has succeeded in creating an economic network of privileged manipulators and cronies.
Additionally, affirmative action has created a skills shortage crisis as many qualified and economically active whites, and sometimes blacks, left the country because of being excluded. Affirmative action serves a few politically connected black elite; it has seen the rise of extensive corruption, but has still left millions of black people, in particular the youths, unemployed and in dire poverty.
Affirmative action creates an illusion job creation and racial integration that doesn’t exist. Instead affirmative action has divided South African society in two, highlighting the divide between the white haves and the black have-nots.
Affirmative action has enhanced the racist perceptions of blacks and whites. Poor blacks are under the illusion that the whites are still the only beneficiaries of business. Whites feel that the tables have turned, and that they are excluded from economic activity based on race.The cost of affirmative action to the poor has been substantial in that it has diverted money from education and infrastructure projects that would have been beneficial, and instead created bloated agencies and departments that don’t contribute to the economy in any meaningful way.
Affirmative action supports racism’s bedfellow, namely tribalism, where favoured politically connected businessmen are able to benefit from government tenders and contracts. It promotes and create an impression that to succeed, you must be first politically connected.
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