As someone concerned primarily with the rights and welfare of people with disabilities, I nonetheless make it my business to keep abreast of issues of social equity in the broad sense. I have to admit to being deeply concerned by the trends that are emerging from many private and/or state sponsored equity programmes.
South Africa promotes diversity and equity through law and through the consequent implementation of a myriad public and private programmes. While an acknowledgement of diversity is stated to be the objective of all this activity, it can easily be argued that the promotion of black South Africans is more squarely the predominant focus of the government and private energy and resources. The promotion of equality for women and people with disabilities tends to garner degrees of token support, while other defined groups only really receive attention through pro-active campaigns on their own behalf or action through the courts.
One can accept that the greatest political need for intervention is probably in the realm of racial disparity, but my experience as a disabled person who faces patronising behaviour on a regular basis tells me that even these race-targeted initiatives are miscueing on a dramatic scale. The terrible consequences of apartheid policies on the lives and families of many South Africans are not my experience. Whatever the past held, however, it is a mistake to use equity programmes to target one defined group, as the obvious perceived rationale and adopted psychology is that in order to promote diversity, people from this particular group are going to need really special attention.
Young intelligent black South Africans in 2002 are being subjected to a form of abuse that I, as a disabled person, recognise all too well. It takes the form of a barrage of embarrassing and patronising attitudes, programmes and policies that clearly depict black people as ”in need of special assistance”. The government and business alike seize on the principle of ”group identity being a proxy for shared experience” and use this as a basis for cheap ”quick fix” solutions.
Surely it is at the cultural root of racism in our country that we need to strike we need to learn that it is evidence of black success that neutralises racist thinking, and perceptions of black neediness that nourish it. The distinction is subtle but simple: deliver programmes with high expectations and that ”deliver success and diversity” don’t deliver programmes that ”mitigate black neediness” and which are often, in fact, a thinly disguised attempt to contain perceived black incompetence.
In my view any equity programme designed to promote racial equity that does not promote pride and yield the exaltation of successful black Africans in a diverse, successful organisation is no help at all, and certainly not a fitting memorial to those who suffered and sacrificed so much for South African democracy. Michael Watermeyer, Cape Town