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

[ddstory]

This somehow reminds me of the adage that we've been hearing recently in US politics: racism has been dealt with, therefore it doesn't exist any more, therefore the laws protecting from racism should begin to be scaled back.

It's like vaccines as well. Because vaccines have successfully erased a number of diseases, those diseases no longer exist, therefore vaccines should be abandoned.

Affirmative action may be flawed, but it has a purpose, and that is to empower segments of society that have been deliberately marginalized. I agree that the AA system needs a dramatic reform, but that doesn't mean it's a flawed idea from the onset. It only means that the people who've implemented it and the way they've implemented it has been perverted by greed and hunger for power.

[luzribeiro]

The affirmative action shouldn't be using your race to identify you as a beneficiary of the policy but rather your social and economic circumstances. The advantage there is that race can't be used to justify inappropriate appointments.

You're right, the system itself is not inherently detrimental, but the way it is currently being used, is.

[yes_justice]

Affirmative action may be affording you a superior set of problems rather than solutions.

[mahnmut]

I hate to say it, being an active ANCYL member and all, but the situation won't change until the ANC's domination on our political scene is shaken, and they start fearing for their political future. Until then, they just don't care.

[yes_justice]

"There is no doubt that the officials responsible for these deaths were appointed, at least in part, on grounds of race-based affirmative action and that a direct causal link therefore exists between the policy and the deaths."

Whites under apartheid never made engineering mistakes or had issues with contaminated water? Even after reading the article, I need a clearer line drawn between AA and bad water/dead babies. I'm thinking that the closer this is examined, the link to apartheid itself is strong than to the AA reaction to it.

But two decades have passed now, and apartheid can no longer serve as the sole excuse for our problems

There isn't a hard time line. Two decades is just one generation. Didn't it take way longer than that to create the problem? May take longer to fix it. Addressing the institutional and cultural issues may take longer than they took to create.

The fact is, consistently putting people into job positions which they cannot manage, puts pressure on the person themselves, and causes damage and even

[luzribeiro]

Two decades is just one generation, and yet at least traces of improvement are to be expected, in case the effort is in the right direction. When there's no improvement but instead deterioration, then things must have been done the wrong way, no? I'm OK with a problem taking longer to fix, the real problem is that there's no signs that work is being done towards fixing it. And people all around the country have started realizing this, and are growing increasingly angry because of that

[yes_justice]

at least traces of improvement are to be expected

(Consider what happened to the Native Americans in my country, some plants don't grow back.)

I'm sure you can find an good anecdote to counter your dead babies bad water one? Also, when white engineers kill babies by failing to clean the water, what is blamed?

Not the strike was due to incompetence, the police response was full of incompetence, and that cost human lives.

Was the police force AA populated? Would non-AA force behave differently? Forgive me, it was before I was born in a different country, I am ignorant.

Do the AA for education and training, and then hire accordingly. Its so much easier to see the micro effects of Affirmative Action while ignore the macro effects of Apartheid.

Whatever they say, AA does remain racially based, and, given the fact that it's being misused to exploit millions of people of a particular ethnic group, it *is* racist.By definition, its fighting fire with fire

[luzribeiro]

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.

Post-Mandela South Africa Is a Nation on Edge
http://www.thetelescopenews.com/index.php/africa/3451-post-mandela-south-africa-is-a-nation-on-edge.html
"Recent elections exposed a weakening ANC, with an embattled president and an economy no longer pre-eminent on the continent."

South Africa still a chronically racially divided nation, finds survey
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/06/south-africa-racially-divided-survey
"Reconciliation barometer poll finds 43% rarely or never speak to someone from another race, denting rainbow nation ideal"South Africa to Vote for Zuma Even if They Don’t Like Him