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Whites, blacks are taking care of their own

RECENT statistics showing that only 50percent of black graduates get jobs after they graduate are very disappointing.

On the flip side, the revelation that 99percent of white graduates are immediately employed is pleasing.

Government departments seem to enjoy hiring friends of friends and the private sector seems keen to employ those whose skin colour corresponds with their own rather than embracing racial diversity.

I am not picking on whites because all races are guilty of "taking care of their own". This form of institutional racism is like throwing a monkey wrench into the works of employment equity and racial integration.

When a black child witnesses his or her role models graduate only to remain unemployed in the townships, will that inspire them to believe the pen is mightier than the sword?

A black child looks into their old fridge and sees only a bottle of tap water and an onion. His next-door neighbour, a gangster, is making a killing and his other neighbour, a graduate, is struggling to make ends meet.

Who does the child think is successful?

On TV leaders tells them to kill each other, radio presenters encourage alcohol and he absorbs all this information because his father has passed away and his mother is exploited as a domestic worker.

This sad reality cannot continue unchallenged. I urge ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and other youth leaders to look into these matters since such a predicament will discourage young blacks from enrolling at tertiary institutions because it seems that education is not paying off, especially for blacks.

Tebogo Moatshe Ditshego, Kagiso

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