White males dominate the upper echelons of employment in South Africa.
As the Employment Equity Commission year after year states, positions from CEO down are dominated by people who have been responsible for every ill to befall this country.
And while new tougher black economic empowerment laws are to be welcomed, perhaps we are not going far enough. New laws – which are being opposed by the usual bunch of reactionary suspects – would allow the minister of labour to prescribe racial targets for various sectors.
This is long overdue and something that should have been implemented years ago. The private sector has been ever-reluctant to transform, and this new legislation will be a useful tool in ensuring that white males are dragged – kicking and screaming most likely – into democratic South Africa.
But it must be asked if this legislation – which hopefully will be passed soon – goes far enough. We know that there will be the usual bleating from the private sector that there is a lack of skills, and that’s why they have to keep their companies lily white. And even if the government passes this necessary and vital legislation we know that it will take some time for demographics of companies to reflect that of the country at large. To say nothing of the huge logistical effort it will take to ensure that there are enough inspectors to go around, to make sure that companies comply with the law and do not employ too many white people.
A possible solution is to have a moratorium on the employment of white males for a limited period. Some may well argue that a relatively short period of preventing the employment of white males – say only a decade – could suffice.
Four years ago, I suggested a similar moratorium on white males voting for a generation, which saw the usual outpouring of white male rage which happens when they perceive any of their privilege being threatened. Although my idea got people talking it has, sadly, never been taken up as a serious policy proposal.
But this similar proposal, of a moratorium on the employment of white males for a period, is far less radical. I think this proposal should be limited to South Africa (if it works well in this country other countries which also have serious problems with white supremacy, such as the United States, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, and Thailand, could also consider implementing it). The moratorium on white male employment would last for only a decade – a very short time considering the centuries of brutality they inflicted on the world.
This will go a long way to fast-tracking the demographic representivity that we as a country are so badly crying out for.
Now some will say that this is unfair and even white males are human and deserve human rights and should be allowed to earn a living. This may be true, but white males as a group have not paid for the many crimes they have committed over the centuries. This employment moratorium can be seen as both a form of punishment for their crimes and a type of reparations.
At the same time we must not forget that white males are at the top of the income and wealth pile in South Africa. Most white males can easily go without working for ten years and still have a comfortable nest egg left over at the end of it – statistics on wealth in South Africa bear this out. I pointed this out to a white beggar at a traffic light. When the wretch asked me to spare some change, I reminded him that he was the beneficiary of hundreds of years of apartheid and colonial privilege and should have more than enough funds to tide him over. The man started crying and said he hadn’t eaten in three days. White male fragility indeed!
But South Africa now has a unique opportunity to pass very progressive legislation and prohibit people from working based only on their immutable characteristics, such as their sex and race. The opportunity MUST be seized.
A decade-long moratorium on white male employment is a small price to pay to ensure demographic representivity in South Africa’s workplaces. We must move on from apartheid and colonial labour and employment relations.