BEE’s survival hinges on illusion that it is pro-black, anti-white – IRR

BEE will survive for as long as the idea persists that the policy is pro-black and anti-white.

So says Institute of Race Relations (IRR) Fellow Gabriel Crouse, executive director of IRR Legal, and author of the IRR’s latest report, "Refusing Forced Racialisation at Work".

Crouse was speaking in a webinar held today to launch the report.

Key points in the report are that

• “Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience”, according to the Constitution, which must include the right to refuse to racially self-classify at work to avoid ever benefiting from one’s own race at work;
• The race classification system covering at least 7.5 million workers, with January 15 as its first deadline, threatens to directly benefit and harm people from all eight race-gender pairs, and
• The constitutional rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and South Africa’s history of race misclassification all reinforce the right to remain silent about race at work.

In his concluding remarks, Crouse said: “If you look at how BEE actually works you will stop thinking that it’s anti-white and pro-black. BEE will survive for as long as that message does not get out.

“When BEE is advertised as pro-black and anti-white then even though some people will oppose it, it will retain enough political relevance and political popularity to survive, (despite its having) been so terribly damaging to people from all groups, directly and indirectly.

“If, on the other hand, you recognise that BEE cuts against everyone, not just because of second-order effects – where it harms investment – but directly by setting a ‘Barnard Principle’ obstacle to promotion for ‘any group’ that is ‘over-represented’, and has already been used against people from every single group, then you will confront a clear and present danger to our rainbow republic.”

Crouse adds: “People who realise that BEE cuts against people from all groups directly do not opt out of the BEE system at work because they think they belong to one race group that is a special victim. Rather, refusing racial classification at work is a matter of being a South African who sees [that] the system is stupid, counterproductive, undignified, and you don’t want to be a part of it.”

The report notes that the “new racial ‘targets’ regime under the Employment Equity Act exposes employees and employers alike to a series of irreconcilable contradictions”.

“On the one hand, companies face severe penalties if they do not classify and adjust their workforce according to racial ratios. On the other hand, the law offers no clear or consistent definition of race, forcing employers to rely on appearance, parentage, social convention, or political decree – all of which have historically produced error, injustice, and controversy – according to an unknown balance, in mysterious ways, that can only amount to arbitrariness.

“Employees are not unprotected in this process. The Constitution guarantees their rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and conscience. These rights make it unlawful to compel individuals to disclose their race against their will, to subject them to medical or genetic testing, or to force them to represent themselves – or their colleagues – in racial terms at work. To the contrary, refusing forced racialisation can itself be a conscientious, patriotic act, grounded in South Africa’s non-racial moral tradition and consistent with the constitutional order.”

Media contact: Gabriel Crouse, IRR Legal Executive Director Tel: 082 510 0360 Email: gabriel@irrlegal.org.za

Media enquiries:

Anneke Burns

IRR Public Relations

+27 71 423 0079

anneke@abpr.co.za