Affirmative action FTW

[luzribeiro]

Here's a terrible case for your review:

http://news.iafrica.com/sa/943006.html

"The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has released a statement saying affirmative action kills babies. In the statement, it says race-based policies are being used as a veil to conceal corruption and incompetence and many vulnerable communities are paying a deadly

Comments

[yes_justice]

I don't need anecdotes. All I need is statistics, economic data, election results, and current polls about the public's perception of their government.

Okay, thanks. There is more overview in those articles to digest. Will take me time.

The first one:

"The once hopeful post-colonialist story of South Africa is now battered by crime, poverty and HIV/AIDS, forcing an uncomfortable re-examination. "

It makes it sound like the starting point was more utopian than it was, ya know?

>> "Also, when white engineers kill babies by failing to clean the water, what is blamed?"
> Where are those white engineers? Are we discussing a hypothetical now?

Yes. When such things happen to white engineers stateside, we blame corruption, nepotism, profit over people, etc. When such things happen to black engineers, we blame AA, regardless white privilege can even lead to similar "promoting incompetence" results. My main point was that I still don't see the direct line between a failure to provide clean safe water and affirmative action from your example, but maybe there is a white sanitation engineer who lost that specific job to a black one and knows different. There's a phenomenon stateside where AA is blamed when black people don't install achieve instant parity with whites. "We wasted the college slot on him", etc. So, I worry the same thing happens there.

Do I look like a clairvoyant to you?

No, nothing like that, just that you drew a direct link between the actions of the police forces and AA, so you may have insight.

I'm suggesting, blindly, that there can be other factors which influenced that situation. AA didn't cause Sharpville for example. The implication was that competent police (ones not appointed via AA) would not massacre, so I asked if this was actually so.

All I can say is that simple logic seems to suggest that incompetent people tend to do more fatal mistakes than competent people.

Agreed. However can we directly link that incompetence to AA effects? Or is more going on here? Maybe the AA wasn't aggressive enough? Maybe you are a worse officer if you are worried about your parents well being more than someone whos parents are well off? If so, is it then fair to make direct comparisons?

Its difficult to measure these things. But dead babies from bad water seems a reasonable line to me, but will getting rid of AA solve that issue? Is that what is being proposed?

There must be a reason that people are angry and protesting against corruption and incompetence all across the country, or am I just imagining things?

I'm certain there are a multitude of reasons, AA not excluded.

And mind you, the majority of those expressing their disapproval are not white. They're black and coloureds because those are the ones who are the recipients of the bulk of the negative effects from failed policies.

What is the ANC's stranglehold on this population? That they support AA policy? What is their alternative?

[luzribeiro]

Of course there's always more factors than just one, and more is going on than mere AA. I never said otherwise. The culture of nepotism, cronyism and corruption runs deep in this society as well as other societies. And AA has only helped enhance that process rather than counter it. That's the whole point. AA is neither the root cause nor the panacea, but unless it's reviewed and modified, it'll only be helping the situation deteriorate more.

The ANC's alternative is ANC itself. A different ANC, the ANC of Mandela rather than Zuma, an ANC that truly provides opportunities for the people, rather than fortifying its political position by means of economic and social control, AA being one among those means.