Dear Private Citizen
How sad I am that I cannot call you Private Ryan. Yes I am not here save you, you can do it yourself. You sound like a dejected and deeply disappointed young man, I would say with good reasons. You see, without hope we are nothing, for hope feeds the dreams that drive us. But dreams come from within, not from above. It is your inner being that tells us more about who you are, not the colour of your eyes.
Yes you are right to feel I am crazy when you believe your blue eyes and race are associated to your unhappiness. After all, every-one tells you if you are white, then tough luck there is no work for you because you fall outside the AA policies of the land. Oh yes they tell you for the same reason you cannot start a business and do business with the state, you and your fathers have supported with their taxes.
How wrong you are, and how sad it is that you have fallen victim to one of the biggest lies of the democratic order. Private Citizen, here is South Africa for dummies for you:
Affirmative Action means whites in general and white males in particular have no future in the country
Here are the facts and please ask those who know better than me to call my bluff, I suggest Solidarity Union and Afriforum will be a good start for this, I personally respect them.
- AA as a policy
It is stated that the policy is meant to redress the past imbalances. Now, that assumes that we all agree that Qualifying Non Whites were excluded from certain positions for their colour and also Excluded to Acquire certain skills because of their colour.
Let's start with the easiest, the skills. In the past you could not be accepted as an artisan unless you have completed military service, which was only for white people, so no or few black artisans were produced by the Apartheid system. Correct Government response should have been to train artisans and use the system that the Apartheid system used as it produced the core of technical skills you have at Transnet, SAA and so on. So it was working. The Government failed by throwing that away. It is lunacy to appoint people into positions they are not trained for because they are back, so I hope we agree there.
I would say you not more than 30 years at most and your group and younger are unjustly targeted by the policy in my view, and more so when you move closer to age 25. The reason for my views are: I have a younger sister and a brother in that age category, my parents are ordinary working class people, say a teacher and a nurse/accountant. I would say my siblings entire education was what you call a Model C education, which most white South African's attended.
Now, is it fair for them to go to the same school as you and same University as you and they claim to be disadvantaged? The answer is no, they are not as they have the same starting base as you and therefore their colour has no role to play there, only economic or social status can explain differences in your career successes. Now, at a policy level I would agree with everyone who says your exclusion from opportunities is racism if it does not take into account economic factors.
Operationally, the majority of those who get jobs are white people and the majority of those who are jobless are black people, even when you have factored population group size. Meaning, objective reports indicate that you have more un-employed black graduates than white graduates.
Also, in the private sector specifically, AA is not enforced or is not enforceable. There are good reasons for this. You see, most white candidates are articulate and are generally more confident as compared to black candidates of the same qualification and experience (call it a dangerous generalisation but once you realise that language alone accounts for the greater part of this you will agree with me. Otherwise, ask recruitment agents). The other reason is that black graduates turned to qualify in non-numerical degrees or qualifications (again, just have a look at the maths and physical science results at high school level and tell me if I am on grass or not).
Now have a look at your next edition of Star Job section and tell me how many jobs in IT, Finance, Engineering, etc, are there as compared to Creative Arts, and other Non quantitative careers. You will agree with me that logically, only those who have the right qualifications for the jobs that are available that will be employed, not racial bias, at least in most cases.
Now, add another factor, White people have better social networks in the private sector than in the public sector (well I agree the evidence is anecdotic, but if you consider that statistically, private companies remain largely white and senior managers are dominantly white, you will expect some form of old boys club, which I am sure exists in the public sector too where you can argue that there is a reversal in racial terms).
Now, adding all these things up, you will realise that as a white male, you stand a good chance to have a job statistically as compared to a black male, at least in the private sector. True, Government is the biggest employer, and any exclusion there is a negative in this, that is if AA is applied blindly.
The biggest asset you have which most black males do not have is not your genes but your family environment. Yours is more supportive and if 54% of black households are led by single Mothers, you will understand what I mean.
Conclusion on AA and your chances of a job for you as a white male. Government need to change policy and use economic/social factors not race to implement AA as a policy. That will cover both black and white who need support, after all, it is the weakest among us that need state care mainly. Government should rather focus on developing human capital across the board and allow companies to fund training programs that work.
I am a product of such a program and trust me I am not white and it works. Jobs must be given to those who qualify and have the expertise and those who do not meet the standards must be developed to meet them and be given equal opportunities to compete. All said, your chances of having a job are better than a black male on evidence at least. We all need to knock sense to our leaders to do the right thing.
BEE and your ability to start and do business with the state as a white male
This is where you are fundamentally misled and indirectly couched to view black people negatively as a group for cheap politics. Here is the truth.
BEE benefits companies who do business with the state more than those who do not, though there are BEE Charters that are far removed from real life problems. Do yourself a favour, go to any Government website and download a tender document. Go to the evaluation criteria section and this is what you will see:
1; Bidders generally have to meet basic minimum requirements and these relate to things such as having a tax clearance, financial statements, etc. Failure to meet these requirement means you do not progress to the next stage, irrespective of how you look, no one cares, it's the policy.
2; The second stage normally refers to technical ability, skills and operational matters. Here you have to prove by providing references, etc that you have done similar work and you can do the job. You need to get a certain minimum, which can average 70% in order to proceed to the next level, irrespective of how you look, no one cares, it's the policy. Now I will give you and say this is where an opportunity for corruption comes in. Someone can score you low or higher, but that is different, its CORRUPTION not BEE.
3, this stage referrers to price and BEE. Price carries 90% AND BEE 10% IF the tender is for more than R1m, otherwise for less than that, normally it is 80% and 20% respectively. Now, the BEE part is evaluated by simply reading what a BEE verification company gave you as a score in your certificate.
You can get 0 or full points. It's a complicated process they use to come up with the scores on your BEE and that does not mean ownership, certainly not shares only. Now, I work for a 100% owned black female company, they have a score of 80% as level 3 contributor and that means we can never get full points on BEE. Our auditors are an almost 100% white firm and they are level 1 contributor, meaning they are more BEE than our business and therefore get full points whereas we only get 8/10. Now that makes you think I am sure, but dude, you have been duped. Go and start a business and starting making your way to the King's league.
I will not get to the other levels of BEE in terms of acquiring state assets or mining concessions, buying shares in white companies, etc. That's a very long story and I can just sum it up by saying, most black males would die to have your life and you are dying to have your resignation accepted instead of staying put, inform yourself and fight for your rights and rights of others. You want more on how I feel about your other issues, checkout ACTIVISM in mynews24.com.
Now, if the above account has not helped address your grievances on core issues, knowing very well I have not touched on corruption, crime, etc, I am sadly accepting your resignation. Good luck.
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