White South Africans complain affirmative action policy is causing them to face discrimination

White South Africans say it has become harder for them to get a job because of a policy aimed at helping to rectify past apartheid wrongs, called black economic empowerment.

The policy has imposed quotas on government positions to ensure black South Africans are appropriately represented in the public sector.

But there has been an unintended by-product, with more and more white South Africans saying they have been finding it difficult to get a job and are living in poverty.

Read the complete story by ABC here.

What South Africans really think about racism and affirmative action

A new report by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) reveals the opinions of South Africans of all races when it comes to issues of racism and affirmative action.

Read the story here.

Affirmative action and the Employment Equity Act in South Africa

Shepstone & Wylie Attorneys, Lexology

Affirmative action in South Africa is defined in the Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998 (“the Act”) as:

“Measures designed to ensure that suitably qualified people from designated groups have equal employment opportunities and are equitably represented in all occupational categories and levels in the workforce of a designated employer."

Designated groups refer to black people, women and people with disabilities. Section 6(2) of the Act also states that it is not unfair discrimination to take affirmative action measures consistent with the purposes of the Act.

Read the story here.

Students in South Africa Protest Slow Pace of Change

By Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times

CAPE TOWN — It was only when he landed at the University of Cape Town, a bastion of the fight against apartheid, that Ramabina Mahapa became truly conscious of his race.

Mr. Mahapa, 23, grew up in a village with only black South Africans, and he graduated at the top of his high school class. But when he got to the University of Cape Town, the gap between black and white students became clear to him: Of the 15 people who owned cars in his dorm, only one was black. When the first test results came in, the black students ranked at the bottom.

Read the story here.

Affirmative action: silence from west

Weekend Post
South Africa
2010/10/04

WIKIPEDIA defines affirmative action as: equal opportunity employment measures that are intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment, on the basis of “colour, religion, sex, or national origin”.
The impetus towards affirmative action is to redress the disadvantages associated with overt, institutional or involuntary discrimination.
Further impetus is a desire to ensure public institutions, such as universities, hospitals and police, are more representative of the populations they serve. Some policies adopted as affirmative action, such as racial quotas or gender quotas for collegiate admission, have been criticised as a form of “reverse discrimination”.

Full Post: http://www.weekendpost.co.za/opinion/article.aspx?id=611618

Blow for affirmative action (South Africa)

News24.com
Jan de Lange
2009-08-19 09:28

Johannesburg - The way in which affirmative action is applied in the civil service has been dealt a blow in the labour court.In a recent court settlement, four police officers who were denied promotion five years ago were vindicated on all the points of their complaint, with retroactive effect.The South African Police Service (SAPS) hastily and surprisingly offered a settlement, therefore preventing a legal argument from developing regarding critical aspects of affirmative action.The matter of the four officials was the most important test case regarding affirmative action in the civil service to date.The legal proceedings had been instituted by four forensic scientists and on Monday the case was settled by granting all the requests they asked for back in November 2004: immediate promotion, which was formerly refused due to the colour of their skin, as well as full compensation with retroactive effect, as if they had indeed been promoted at that time.Posts left vacantIn this case the SAPS had decided to leave key positions vacant rather than appointing white candidates.The white applicants were fully qualified - with formal training and years of experience - for these highly skilled posts.

Full Story: http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/f99a18ebda444ca285209275bf896a08/19-08-2009-09-28/Blow_for_affirmative_action#

Americans Support Affirmative Actions Programs

June 4, 2009 (South Africa)

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in the United States back the concept of affirmative action, according to a poll by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media released by the Associated Press. 56 per cent of respondents favour these programs for racial and ethnic minorities, and 63 per cent support programs for women.
Affirmative action programs provide preferential treatment based on race, gender, colour, ethnicity or national origin in areas such as public employment, education and contracts, in an effort to promote equal opportunity.
Supporters of affirmative action point out that some groups have been historically disadvantaged and require additional assistance, while opponents counter that the programs end up devaluing the achievements of minorities.
Last month, former South African president F. W. de Klerk questioned the use of affirmative action, saying, "To say, equal representation must now be implemented in the social world, the cultural world and the business world. That is, in my opinion, a total distortion of the Constitution. (...) It is, in my opinion, unbalanced and often unconstitutional. Affirmative action must be altered so that it is no longer racist."

Full Story and Opinion Poll Data:
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/americans_support_affirmative_actions_programs/

Affirmative action must stay - Zuma

Cape Argus
October 27, 2008
Edition 1

It was still too early to end affirmative action, ANC president Jacob Zuma said at the weekend. In a speech prepared for delivery at an investors' lunch in New York, he also said the ANC was confident of a decisive victory in next year's general election. Zuma, who earlier this week met top US officials in Washington, said black people and women were still largely excluded from upper and middle management. The Employment Equity Commission had noted in 2007 that whites continued to dominate senior management at 65%, with blacks at 18%, and that the bulk of new recruits were white as well. "The employment equity figures clearly indicate that it is still early days to call for an end of affirmative action in South Africa," Zuma said. President Kgalema Motlanthe, then still a minister in the presidency, said in August that the government would consider phasing out the programme, but only after careful consideration. In the same month, ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa lamented the fact that the departure of whites from the public service had left a skills vacuum in certain areas.
http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=3571&fArticleId=4682518&ap=1#

Too early for affirmative action to come to an end

The Times (South Africa)
Jimmy Manyi
October 12, 2008

It is not uncommon to hear the critics of affirmative action citing the continued plight of the rural poor, and the disproportionate benefit that a few of the elite have gained from the process, as indications that employment equity programmes are failing.
The purpose of employment equity is to achieve racial diversity in the workplace in such a way that it reflects the demographics and values of the wider society. Employment equity is not a medicine for all the social and economic ills of the country.
Yes, indeed, affirmative action may be a race-based strategy, but it is aimed at achieving a race-blind end. If you remove the race criteria of affirmative action, it would be tantamount to denying that apartheid targeted black people.
For the purposes of the Employment Equity Act, the end state has been defined to mean the equitable representation of an economic active population (EAP) in terms of all the race groups.
In the September 2007 Labour Force Survey, the EAP within the various race groups was as follows: Africans (74,8%) coloureds (10,3%), Indians (2,8%) and whites (12,1%). Within these numbers, the act requires that gender be tracked separately, which resulted in the following EAPs for women: Africans (34,4%), coloureds (5,0%), Indians (1,0%) and whites (5,4%).
In terms of the provisions of the act, these percentages should be reflected at all levels and across all categories.
It is against this background that the 2007 snapshot of progress, or lack thereof, should be measured.
In understanding this data, it is crucial to point out that it is only designated employers — both public and private sector — that are participants in this game. These are sizeable employers with a prescribed number of employees and turnover. Needless to point out, the act does not apply to spaza shops, street hawkers and one-man-band operations .
If one draws a trend line from 2003 to 2007/8, it is very depressing to note that at the level of top management, Africans are 18,8% against an EAP of 74,8%; coloureds are at 3,9% against an EAP of 10,3%; Indians are 6,1% against an EAP of 2,8%; and whites dominate at a whopping 68% against an EAP of only 12,1%.
It therefore defies logic that a sunset clause on affirmative action is even being discussed.
Figures also show that white women, in particular, have been the main beneficiaries of the act. This over-representation of white women leads one to conclude that because the gatekeepers are almost exclusively white, perhaps they can only see merit in their own kind. [To see the entire article, go to: http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=861270 ]

South Africa: Affirmative Action Without a Plan Ruled Discriminatory

AllAfrica.com
19 September 2008
Ernest Mabuza
Johannesburg

AN EMPLOYER cannot discriminate against a prospective employee on the basis of race if the employer did not have an affirmative action policy or plan in place, according to a Supreme Court of Appeal judgment on Wednesday.
The court reversed a decision of the Labour Court and found that the appointment of RZ Mkongwa to the post of deputy director at Greys Hospital in Pietermaritzburg unfairly discriminated against Martin Gordon - a white male.
It ruled Gordon had succeeded in showing that the failure to appoint him was inherently arbitrary and therefore amounted to unfair discrimination.
Gordon retired in 2003 and the judgment will not affect Mkongwa's position.
The appeal court ordered the health department to pay Gordon the difference between what he would have earned, had he been appointed to the position in June 1996, and what he actually earned, for the period June 1 1996 to the date of his retirement in March 2003, including interest.
In April 1996, the KwaZulu-Natal health department advertised the post and Mkongwa and Gordon were among the applicants. Gordon had started working for the department in 1967 and was an administrator of three hospitals when he applied for the post.
Mkongwa had started his career with the department in June 1974 as an assistant administrator and had progressed to the position of administration officer in June 1989.
The selection panel decided that Gordon was the most suitable for the post. However, the provincial Public Service Commission did not accept the department's recommendation and directed the department to appoint Mkongwa instead. [To read the entire post, go to: http://allafrica.com/stories/200809190067.html

A South African Campus Wrestles With the Legacy of Apartheid

The Chronicle of Higher Education

By MEGAN LINDOW
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It was all just a "harmless" prank, never intended to hurt anyone, the students say.
Sitting around a table on the lawn of Reitz Hall, their residence complex on the campus of the University of the Free State, Willie Struwig and Jan Botha, both third-year students, try to explain their bewilderment at the waves of outrage that have swept this campus lately, ever since video footage of white students humiliating the hall's black cleaning staff found its way from the privacy of their dormitory to the Web.
Released on campus late last month, the video shows five elderly black domestic workers on their knees, being taunted by white male students to drink a stew that one of the young men had allegedly urinated into (The Chronicle, February 28).
The episode has thrown this historically white Afrikaans university—now struggling with racial transformation—into turmoil. It has also, educators say, exposed deeper undercurrents of racial animosity that persist on this and other campuses around the country after 14 years of democracy in South Africa, particularly among young white Afrikaans men who feel they face a bleak future under black majority rule.
The video, made by four white students in protest against a new university policy requiring the racial integration of campus housing, was shown last September at a "cultural evening" in Reitz Hall, their exclusively white-male residence.
Mr. Botha, a psychology major, remembers watching the video during the cultural evening, where it was voted the most popular entry by the residents, and finding it funny. "It wasn't a racially motivated video," he says. "It was a comedy."
Then, recently, somebody leaked it out over the campus e-mail network, where it was quickly picked up by the local and foreign media. The callous racism shown by a group of Afrikaners who were too young to have ever experienced the cruelties of apartheid first-hand, yet were unsettlingly echoing the old racist attitudes of previous generations, was furiously condemned around the world.
"Once upon a time the 'Boere' lived peacefully here on Reitz Island, until one day when the less-advantaged discovered the word 'integration' in the dictionary," the narration begins.
Mockingly portrayed as new "initiates" into Reitz Hall, the five cleaners—four women and a man—are filmed running a race, downing beers, and playing rugby. But the clincher comes toward the end, as the students prepare a concoction of what looks like dog food mixed with garlic.
Then a young man clad in a baseball cap is shown placing the mixture on top of a toilet. Standing with his back to the camera, he appears to urinate into the mixture.
In the next scene, the concoction is served to the five unsuspecting workers, who are kneeling on the ground. Tasting the mixture, they start gagging and spitting it out while the boys laugh, telling them in Afrikaans to finish it.
Bitter Divisions
Since the video's release, two of the students have been suspended and barred from the campus. The other two had graduated at the end of last year, but all four now face criminal prosecutions. The university is also considering whether to close down Reitz Hall, a residence that many students and staff members say is a breeding ground for racism on campus. [To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/03/2150n.htm ]