Corporates must stop thinking black people are only good when they need a get-out-of-jail card

‘Don’t be so thirsty for opportunity that you drink from every cup handed to you … that’s how you get poisoned.”

From stolen items to stolen dreams – not every opportunity offered to one is meant for the taking.

Sometimes look at what is being offered, why it’s being offered and who is doing all the offering.

That said, black economic transformation, to a very large extent, is being held back by those that do drink from every cup that is handed to them – easy targets who, for as long as they bring home the bacon, wear the title and occupy the corner office, have no issue being the face of an industry, business or an economic sector that worries not about empowerment!

I am alarmed by how many black people are willing to be pawns in an underhanded game of puppets and puppet masters to a system that is generally unfair to their growth.

The #BlackMonday protest comes to mind in this aspect. While it is true, the farmer does bring us food, it is also true that there are perfectly capable people of colour who can farm and become food producers.

It is not necessarily true that, should black people be given the opportunity to own and manage farms, South Africa would be headed down the same path travelled by Zimbabwe.

The case of KPMG comes quickly to mind. For years and years the company had been run by a certain demographic.

It then had a public relations nightmare and all of a sudden black people of a certain gender classification were deemed good enough to run it.

While the company will argue it was always their intention to empower the previously disadvantaged, their timing raises questions. It’s almost as if they decided that we were all of a sudden good enough.

South Africa has the potential to move forward together – not divided along political lines, not as racially-divided masses – but we need to move together collectively.

Corporate South Africa must stop thinking that people of colour are only good enough when they need a get-out-of-jail card.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo

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