Many things have happened to me and the people
around me in life and I get it. I get it
that there were atrocities in the past that needs to be fixed. I get it that the playing fields need to be
levelled. I get it that it will take
years until the imbalances of the past is fixed. What I cannot get is this ugly thing called
political correctness.
Unlike the word choice of the term and what I
wrote in the previous paragraph, this word has nothing per se to do with
politics. It is a term used when someone
says the “middle of the road” thing not to upset anyone else. It is when decisions are taken as not to
possibly offend someone.
I see it happening all around me every day. There is not a better place to see the
evidence than on television. You have a
program, where there are judges, then one is white, one is black, one probably
coloured or Indian and one definitely a woman.
Why? Not because they were the
best choices, but rather because they were the politically correct
choices. At the end of day it does not
really mean that these people were the best qualified people for the job, but
rather only the “correct” choices. Who
cares about quality at the end of the day?
Don’t ever confuse this with affirmative
action. Oops no, we cannot say that
anymore. It is employment equity! Why can we not call a spade a spade? I understand the need for affirmative action,
but let’s call it by name then. Then we
all know what is happening and why it happened.
Just take management structures in companies,
sports teams, TV adds, etc. We always
hear that there are no quotas imposed on any of these, but they are expected to
represent the demographics of the country.
Yet, they are all picked or elected straight on merit! Excuse me?
What does that mean? That is just
giving affirmative action a nice name.
Let’s be honest with it!
I just love companies that advertise job
vacancies and says straight next to the advert that it is an AA position! They are honest and everyone knows what they
want and there is no argument. I hate it
when you see a job vacancy that has a little clause at the bottom that reads:
‘All our appointments are made in line with the demographics of the country” or
something stupid like that. Great guys! When I apply for a job, do I fall inside
those lines? If you have five white
managers and you need a black one, don’t open the advert for all races and the
cover yourself at the end of the day by saying you have to appoint a black
manager as your structure needs to represent…you know the rest. Why waste people’s time by not telling them
openly what you are looking for? Because
you want to be politically correct!
Why can we not have people just speak the
truth. For example, the one that is
always a highly debated point is the beloved Springbok Rugby team. Nooo, there are no quotas. Yet every time a new team is selected,
someone complains. Why don’t we just
come straight out and say that we want to have a team that are made up of x
black players, x white players and x coloured players. Then everyone knows exactly where they
stand. That is straight affirmative
action and none of this political correctness where we pussyfoot around the
subject.
The problem is that people abused affirmative
action by doing window dressing. That it
is why it became politically incorrect to call a spade a spade. It is because of the negativity created
through window dressing where people who were obviously not qualified are put
into positions to make the numbers look right.
It is not something unique to any country in the world, it happens all
over where minorities are protected or imbalances of past history are trying to
be forced corrected. That created this
political correctness issue. People do
not want to hear the truth.
There is nothing wrong with affirmative
action. If a group of people were not
given equal opportunities in the past to compete on a level playing field, the
concept of affirmative action is implemented to try and fix the past
mistakes. It does, however, not mean
that totally unqualified people should be moved into position or teams just
because they suit the right profile.
Affirmative action was never about doing window dressing, by putting the
right face in place, but rather about developing the right face! The process wants companies/sports teams to
develop the correct faces for the jobs.
