BEE: not a panacea

I got a new perspective at a braai a while back when the topic turned to apartheid.

My generation – or at least these Afrikaner test subjects – weren’t really affected by/had few memories of apartheid.  Apartheid fell when they were ~10 years old, and for them the end of apartheid simply meant black kids showed up at their schools.

However, they do have some strong memories of the emotions surrounding the event; as kids they may not have known the intricacies, but they could read the atmosphere.  One told a story of how their principal announced at school that he wanted to see the “Black kids” in his office.  He meant kids from a family named Black, but this was lost on some parents who called and threatened him personally.

Another person’s dad was in the police at the time, and she remembers him getting death threats by phone.

One of the things that was said that I think summarizes BEE – and a lot of other big programs like it – is that “everyone thinks they are getting screwed,” in the words of one.  Blacks don’t see progress fast enough in the form of jobs, and then better jobs.  Whites feel like they’re almost discarded at the bottom of the pile.  Indians/colourds feel like they were left dangling before (they had more privileges than blacks, but weren’t considered white) and are again stuck in limbo (since they only yield “partial credit” under BEE).