LETTER: DA traps itself in race-based policies
Mmusi Maimane’s February 10 statement on redress contradicts one he made a year ago
Douglas Gibson (“DA Aims to Tackle Poverty”, February 19) writes that “to state that the DA has chosen to settle on race as a proxy for disadvantage is to misunderstand the DA position”. However, on February 10 DA leader Mmusi Maimane said, “we believe race is a proxy for disadvantage and an accurate reflection of who is still excluded from opportunity. The party has not decided to move away from race-based redress policies.” Gibson, however, says it is “not the proxy [of race] that is the focus [of DA redress policy]” but rather the “socio-economic deprivation that is such a feature of our society”. Gibson is the former chief whip of the DA and is not employed to speak for the party or represent its views on policy. So we are left with what Maimane has said, and Maimane contradicts himself. For example, his February 10 statement on “not [moving] away from race-based policy” completely contradicts that of February 2018 when he said: “We need a wholesale change in empowerment policie...
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