I don't know about you, but if I was the coach of South Africa, I'd find the existence of a guideline that says 'hey Furball, remember not to just stack the team with whites, the coloured blokes are pretty talented as well' would be pretty offensive.
Your 'poor whitey' sentence was ill thought out as well, because it just got harder for talented young white cricketers to get a gig as a First Class cricketer with there only being 30 positions available. And it's no use saying to those players 'well work harder' when there are increased racial barriers against their selection.
I don't buy the 'formerly disadvantaged' argument either. Mandela was elected in 1994. No South African under the age of 21 has directly been disadvantaged by apartheid. Yes, there are obviously still socio-economic conditions that exist as a result; these do not simply disappear overnight when you elect Mandela but we now have an entire generation of South Africans who have grown up in a free, democratic and equal South Africa (in theory.) What's needed is investment in infrastructure, coaching and scholarships - the main reason that cricket is still a white dominated sport is because the best players coming through the schooling system are mostly white. At this stage in history, the transformation policy isn't giving formerly disadvantaged players a fair go, it's unfairly giving players a leg up on the basis of skin colour.
The existence of that guideline is pretty clearly more symbolic than anything else. The magic number is 4, and South Africa were playing 5 players of colour in the group stages who were all there on merit, and didn't immediately implode when the guideline wasn't met due to injuries.
I'm talking about the international guideline, not the domestic quota (which is a hard quota, rather than this target guideline). That one certainly does worry me, because it actively forces certain players to be included ahead of other players without taking talent into account. Very different to having a "ideally we want 4 players of colour" target that isn't actively enforced as a CSA law, as such.
Yeah, poverty is intergenerational and social change is slow. African-Americans certainly aren't equal in the USA, and we're a long time past the abolition of slavery and decades removed from the Civil Rights movement. Women are still overwhelmingly treated like **** despite gaining suffrage, equal pay and anti-discrimination legislation. I don't think many gay teenagers are all that enamoured by homosexuality being removed from a list of psychological conditions when they're still bullied mercilessly by their peers. You're completely right that the players of this generation have grown up in a
theoretically free, democratic and equal South Africa, but the pace of institutional change and social change on the ground is far slower, and years of disadvantage can't be outweighed by a proclamation of "you're equal now". It requires long-term investment and for social attitudes to 'catch up' with the legislative change. As South Africa realises, transformation is a long-run game.
You're right in saying that the best players coming through the schooling system are mostly white. Because white people overwhelmingly have access to those schools. Because they have the money to afford it. Because their families weren't officially treated as second class citizens for nearly 50 years, and they're not subject to institutional bias and subtle racism on a daily basis. Without breaking out the dreadfully overused 'p' word, white South Africans certainly are better placed to access the structures that lead to cricketing success.
I'm pretty certain that CSA
is investing in all those things you mention, trying to redress inequalities from the ground up. If they aren't, they're complete idiots and ought to be replaced by someone semi-competent immediately. Change occurs from the ground up. Coaching, scholarships and infrastructure are the base components of this guideline -- a target has been set that CSA wishes to reach, and as long as they aren't forcefully implementing a hard quota then I see no issues with that. It strikes me as more of a KPI than a hard-and-fast law -- "Oh, only two players of colour are realistically challenging for selection at the moment, is our grassroots policy working?" or "Hey, we've got eight guys from formerly disadvantaged backgrounds in our extended squad plans, things look to be going pretty well".
I used to be fine with hard quotas, thinking them necessary evils. I've changed my mind on that, because quotas and pure affirmative action cause as much re-stigmatisation of the racial identity in question as they purport to solve, and undermine the actual achievements of those who succeed. Clarence Thomas, the US Supreme Court judge, sees his Harvard law degree as practically worthless because people
assume he got it thanks to affirmative action, not because he was actually a ****ing brilliant law student. Similarly, the domestic quota undermines the players of colour (especially black Africans, in this case) who truly deserve their spot, because everyone assumes they only have that spot because of the quota.
I think a key example of this was when Temba Bavuma was selected. Speaking to one particular poster on CricSim, he immediately assumed that he only received the spot because of his skin colour, when he was regularly in the top handful of domestic runscorers in the few years previous alongside old domestic journeymen, first-season wonders and Farhan Berhardien. Realising that Farhan Berhardien was the only other realistic option as far as the statistics went, he admitted that Bavuma did have a genuine case for selection after all. He was there on merit, but people assumed that, because he was black, it must have been the colour of his skin that got him there.
Again, I challenge you to find me one player of colour who plainly did not deserve full national selection post-2007. Philander is
one case. One case of a superior white player being held back because of racial politics, because the CSA hierarchy ****ed up and were utterly inept. I don't see how this one case of the guideline going wrong is evidence that CSA shouldn't be setting a target to be reached as a method of measuring the success of its grassroots programs. As long as they aren't artificially forcing themselves to hit it, I take no issue with this guideline's existence.
I certainly do take issue with this specific CSA **** up, though.