Since apartheid ended in the 1990s, black South Africans have been integrated into communities through affirmative action type laws. These laws have helped oppressed ‘black’ South Africans gain privileges that were otherwise reserved for whites only like owning businesses, for example.
South African blacks also include Indians and anyone else who suffered under apartheid, but somehow Chinese-South Africans were not included. The Chinese were considered ‘colored’ during apartheid and then considered white when South Africa became economically friendly with Taiwan, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Chinese then were able to use the same facilities as whites, but still denied the right to vote and own a business.
Considered white, Chinese-South Africans were not able to benefit from the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003. The denial of the rights given by BBBEE spurred the Chinese Association of South Africa to sue and win a re-classification as black, thus guaranteeing a Chinese elevation in economic standing.
Good for them.
Now that they’re black they have rights. It seems South Africa has room for only two classifications of race — black or white. I would think a country that is working toward race equality would offer Chinese-South Africans ‘black’ benefits as Chinese.
The U.S. has been through its ups and downs when it comes to race relations and we are still nowhere near where we should be. For the first time in history we have a black presidential candidate and many people in this country still have a problem with that.
Fourteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africa is still struggling to see beyond black-and-white, perhaps because the concept presented in regards to why all people in South Africa should have the same rights is economically based. South Africa attributes the need to help blacks “to increase the effective participation of the majority of South Africans in the economy, the stability and prosperity of the economy in the future may be undermined to the detriment of all South Africans,” according to South Africa’s “Government Gazette.”
It makes sense that the economy will benefit when the majority of its people are working and being treated fairly. Think of South Africa as a family. When everyone is making money and working together, the family is happy and successful. But if mom is working and dad cannot get a job then they suffer and problems can arise within the family.
Though we have not reached an equal rights heaven in our own family, perhaps we should work with South Africa and together both countries can accomplish abolishing concepts of racial hate.
Chinese-South Africans are willing to change their race classification to gain rights that should be automatically theirs. How can a society achieve racial equality when it does not allow the respect of a separate classification?
I completely agree with Michael Yee. The last sentence in this article: “How can a society achieve racial equality when it does not allow the respect of a separate classification” contradicts with the idea the writer is trying to convey in the article. Why do we even need separate classification? We’re all human. Sure, there are things such as citizenship and legality involved, but when it comes to equality and human rights, why even classify through race and/or color?
A society which by the difference of skin color (or “accurate skin color”)decide different political power, the economical authority still has big disparity from the modern civil society’s standard
I feel that the article misses the point enitrely. It is a universal, hard, concrete fact that the notion of “races” is absurd and not scientifically proven. There’s no “race gene” or genetic markers where all people of a certain “race” have. A Chinese and a black person can have the same genetic markers but look different. I learned this in both sociology and anthropology. Indeed, what this South Africa reclassification should show is precisely how absurd these classifications are, seeing as though SA has just “white” and “black” and the Chinese now being “black.” Yo, wassup my homies? We need to get away from this whole “race” thing and start belonging to the human race instead of racial categories that are not proven by science.