AfriForum launches campaign against Discovery racism

The civil rights organisation AfriForum today launched a campaign to inform the public against the planned racial discrimination of the new Discovery Bank division. The webpage www.stopracism.co.za was made available for this purpose and to allow the public to add their voice to the dispute that AfriForum has declared with Discovery.

This follows Discovery’s announcement that its new initiative, Discovery Bank, will discriminate against minorities on a racial basis by exclusively giving black depositors a 10% share in the company.

In reaction, AfriForum announced a four-point plan to encourage the organisation’s members and supporters to participate. The plan is as follows:

1. Contact Discovery per email, telephonically or via social media to place your shock and disappointment with its racist actions on record. Put in a plea for equal treatment.
2. If you have already terminated your business with Discovery, make sure that it knows you have done so because you harbour a grievance against its actions.
3. If you have not yet terminated your business with Discovery, make sure that your voice as an unhappy customer is heard.
4. Visit the website www.stopracism.co.za and declare your support for the dispute against Discovery. In this way, you strengthen our voice to take up the matter with Discovery and to update you on any developments in this regard.

Ernst Roets, Deputy CEO of AfriForum, says that Discovery’s actions are a blatant form of racism. “It is one thing to concern yourself with upliftment projects; or to grant bursaries to poor children; or to finance educational institutions. It is an entirely different matter to help a group of middle-class individuals in an exclusively racist manner to build wealth,” Roets says.

“It is the year 2018. Through its actions, Discovery unashamedly buys into the ANC’s racial obsession. It is more than a racial obsession, however. It is an unsustainable racial obsession that reduces minorities to second-class citizens and customers, but at the same time does nothing to address the true crises in this country,” Roets concludes.