The new black opposition party, the Congress of the People (COPE), has said that it wants to change South Africa’s affirmative action policy to include preferential treatment for poor whites.  While this may be an attempt to cater to white voters, it illustrates a fundamental shift in policy: affirmative action based on socio-economic status rather than race alone.  There seems to be support for the change.

Race-based affirmative action (the Black Economic Empowerment, BEE) was supposedly enacted to help undo the inequalities which exist as a legacy of apartheid.  The FMF argues that apartheid illustrated the reasons why we should not discriminate based on race and that BEE is only continuing discrimination (and not to mention considerable ill-will between race groups).

Eustace caught me off guard the other day when he asked why the U.S. census includes questions on race.  I didn’t have a good reason why the government should collect the data, other than so that we can say, “Wow, our hispanic (or latino) population is growing really fast.”  It makes sense to have the data so that we can explain why, for example, reading scores are low in certain cities (large numbers of ESL students).  Is that the reason why the government collects the data though?  As a South African and as someone who wants less (or perhaps no) government intervention, I understood why Eustace was asking the question.  So really, what does it mean to move beyond race?