Building cultures that outlast politics – moving forward from the seeming collapse of DEI and BEE

Daily Maverick

a day ago

In 2020, the murder of George Floyd shook the world and reawakened global demands for racial justice. Boardrooms pledged diversity. Governments proclaimed equity. Corporations rushed to signal solidarity.
But just five years later, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the United States have crumbled under executive orders, while in South Africa, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) faces deep public disillusionment.
Both DEI and BEE were concessions — important, symbolic acknowledgements of injustice, but negotiated within old systems that largely remained intact. DEI largely diversified workplaces superficially, without transferring real decision-making power or wealth.
BEE enabled the emergence of a black elite, but often left structural economic inequality untouched for the majority of South Africans.
To more effectively reach equity in historically segregated societies, we need to rethink our system by legislating culture and quality of life in workplaces. True inclusion means that marginalised communities must not only feel empowered, but also be structurally positioned to participate in and shape economically empowered spaces.
Structural cul-de-sac
The history of economic power in South Africa reveals the structural cul-de-sac that BEE cannot escape, as much as it tries. Starting in the 1600s, Dutch settlers introduced the notion of racialised labour exploitation through enslavement in the Cape, concentrating wealth in the hands of elite white Dutch settlers via stolen bodies and land.
Soon after taking power in the 1800s, British colonists freed enslaved persons but maintained racialised exploitative labour and land appropriation practices.
By the Union of South Africa in 1910, the British colonial government had implemented a series of land and labour laws that favoured the white colonial elite and disempowered black communities.
So, when the National Party took over in 1948, economic policies favouring a white-controlled capitalistic system were firmly rooted in how South African culture, society and politics played out. We all know what happened after.
BEE
We had an opportunity to right the ship in 1994. When the ANC government signed BEE into law in 2003, it seemed like a way to reverse long-standing policies that had repeatedly pushed black communities to the back of the economic line. Yet more than 20 years later, it's largely failed to do so.
When reviewing BEE from a DEI perspective, we see a number of flaws. For one, South African diversity efforts through BEE and similar policies have focused primarily on statistical representation rather than quality of opportunities and equitable chance of success.
Because BEE employs 'black' to envelop every non-white person, it retains the uncomplicated notion that racial dynamics are only black versus white. It does not account for ethnic differences within that broad category of 'black.'
As a result, BEE focuses on statistical representation rather than quality of opportunities and equitable chance of success, making it easy to rig for the wealthy elite. BEE may be embedded in law, but much of its practical impact has been reduced to compliance exercises, targets for black shareholding and senior appointments that can be gamed without fundamentally shifting economic ownership or decision-making power.
Furthermore, like DEI in the US, BEE relies on obedience and goodwill within existing societal frameworks, making both schemes politically vulnerable from the start.
DEI programmes can be undone almost overnight through presidential decree. BEE policies risk favouring the elite and leave ordinary citizens behind.
Transformation failure
Recent articles on issues like corruption have demonstrated just how BEE and related policies have failed to transform South African workplaces. The writers speak to a South Africa that feels trapped in a cycle of economic diversity efforts, corruption and continued entrenchment of racial and class stratification.
This collapse is no accident. It reflects a deeper flaw in how both DEI and BEE were conceived: seeking justice through symbolic inclusion, not through the material realities of lived dignity.
BEE was not a form of reparations; it did not redistribute land or wealth to those historically excluded. Instead, it offered a pathway for a few to ascend within systems that remained structurally unequal. Similarly, DEI diversified leadership optics without altering who controls opportunity or capital.
In post-apartheid South Africa and post-civil rights America, white citizens often anchor their sense of justice in how far we've come from the horrors of apartheid and slavery. Black citizens, by contrast, anchor theirs in how far we still are from the promises of freedom — a future of dignity, opportunity and ownership.
Psychologists call this 'anchoring bias', or the tendency to judge progress based on the reference point we're first given.
National justice efforts will continue to rise and fall with political tides unless we re-anchor them in systems of power: ownership, education, and everyday workplace dignity, not just in how far we've come, but in how just the present truly is.
Some answers
The path forward will be tough, but it can be walked.
First, BEE should be capped for certain business owners who meet agreed-upon high-grossing income levels.
Second, all BEE candidates who reach that income level should be required by law to use x percent of that income towards uplifting the communities that they come from through scholarships and a minimum amount of start-up funding for local black businesses. As part of this scheme, the donating business would also provide mentorship to help the receiving business(es) understand how to expend that money in the most successful and equitable way possible.
Finally, both black and white firms need to focus on inclusion training. All businesses have to recognise their ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic class diversity in order to create equitable workspaces and, in the process, become highly lucrative.
While some businesses voluntarily participate in inclusion training, not all do, creating an unequal playing field across the country. As a result, the government could mandate cultural transformation as part of its economic policies, crafting a sound-proof solution that is resilient in the face of party politics.
While legislation and policy reform are vital, they must be matched by deep culture work – in classrooms, boardrooms and leadership teams. We cannot legislate dignity into someone's daily experience without also transforming how people lead, communicate and relate to one another.
That's why grassroots approaches like the Anti-Racist Hot Dog that blend storytelling, education and collective practice are so critical. These kinds of approaches work with schools and companies to turn inclusion into a lived experience — not a checkbox.