Base economic empowerment on class, not race, to bring about real change.(News)

BYLINE: Devan Pillay

Cuban President Fidel Castro told the South African Parliament in 1998: "There are still today two South Africas which one ought not to call the 'white' one and the 'black' one. That terminology should forever be dropped if a multiracial and united country is meant to be created. I would rather put it this way: two South Africas - the rich and the poor."

Is this provocative challenge a bridge too far for our race-obsessed society to cross?

A while back a student came into my office and strongly objected to the use of racial categories in class discussions. "I do not see race," she insisted, "and therefore refuse to be forced to look at people in racial terms."

While she conceded that we could not avoid racial categories when describing our apartheid past, she took to heart the standard sociological perspective that "race" is at root socially determined, and has nothing to do with biology. In other words, there is only …