Is Inclusion Enough? Lessons from South Africa

I went to South Africa in 2001 to study how its major cities were evolving post-apartheid. Like for many black Americans, while the nation was geographically far from home it was intimately close in my imagination. While studying abroad with a mostly white classmates, I was proud to blend into the streets and college campuses of Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The most painful memory from being perceived as local, was being handed flyers from multiple vendors for discounted caskets in all sizes, a signal of the pervasive AIDS crisis.

What the New York Times described this week in “End of Apartheid in South Africa? Not in Economic Terms” isn’t so different than what I observed 16 years ago. A mix of townships with hazardous infrastructure and shanties, side by side with new subsidized housing. Gleaming and guarded luxury gated communities, near exclusive malls and restaurants, catering to customers with all skin tones. We stayed with families in middle class neighborhoods that reminded me of American suburbs.

The similarities didn't end there for me. NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio’s campaign theme about the “tale of two cities”, could have been about NYC in 2001 or 2016, and the same in Johannesburg and many other global cities. Like the black majority in South Africa today, communities of color in the US often experience residential segregation, lack of access to capital and higher rates of unemployment years after official federal policies that require differential treatment.

The racial wealth divide is both the seed and flower of these challenges. A 2017 study by Demos compared the wealth held by single-parent white families to that held by black and Latino families with two parents (responding to the myth that family composition is at the core of racial wealth divides) and found that:

• The median two-parent black family had $16,000 in wealth.

• The median two-parent Latino family had $18,800 in wealth.

• The median single-parent white family had $35,800 in wealth (two-parent white families had $161,300).

America's long moral failure and economic short sightedness in not equally investing in the potential of all its citizens, will become drastically worse as people of color become the majority of all Americans. While South Africa may sound like it is stuck in neutral, we could be reviving their history. By the middle of this century, white Americans will be the numerical minority, but will likely have economic and institutional control.

If the status quo of wealth inequality continues (to say nothing of the possible actions of the current Administration) it would take Black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth White families have today. For the average Latino family, it would take 84 years to amass the same amount of wealth White families have today.

In the NYT, Moeletsi Mbeki says “The ANCs primary objective was inclusion into the existing system.” South Africa holds many lessons for us. “We never dismantled apartheid,” said Ayabonga Cawe, a former economist with Oxfam, the international anti-poverty organization. ”The patterns of enrichment and impoverishment are still the same.”

As we look ahead to a diverse century in America, we cannot expect the same systems and policies that have led to persistent inequality and exclusion to be a solid foundation for equity. Instead of seeking broader inclusion into a broken system, we need a new vision forward, developed by the rising generation and grounded in authentic equity.