The New South Africa is much like the Old

So, as part of a professional course I am completing, I have to do a certain amount of work in government hospitals ( I am a speech and hearing therapist). As is the practise at such places, everytime you see a client/patient, you have to stat them i.e. record certain pieces of information ( how long your session was, what diagnosis the patient had, etc). This sort of info is useful- it can help hospital administrators decide how well a department is run, can infrom equipment needs ( if a particular disorder is prevelant and working with people who have that disorder requires specialist equipment, than stats can help justify the purchase of siad equipment). So, though I abhor paperwork, I gamely filled in the stat sheet until I came to a rather nasty column: RACE.

I thought we all lived in the rainbow nation, where the levels of pigmentation in your skin are immaterial. Having a race column means that you have to subcribe to the sorts of ideas that made HF Verwoed famous- what do you do when you encounter a client of dubious racial geneology? The pencil test? Should you consult the latest issues of the journal of Race Hygiene to brush up on the newest ways of catching out mulattos who try to pass for White ( or Black, in today's economic climate)? Given our president's obsession with race, why doesn't he make public statements about the races of his cabinet members?

I often think about cunning things to put in the 'race' field when filling out forms:

ARYAN: If you wanna be racist, don't be shy about it. The idea that human beings should be divided up into groups so discrimination can be more precise is a concpet straight outta Germany circa 1939. So go the whole hog- use the terminology of the Nazis.

HUMAN: A good one this suggested by 01. Emphasises that we are all supposed to be equal and that race doesn't matter.

WRITE SOMETHING LIKE 'WHY DOES THIS MATTER?': Registers protest and lets the people in pwoer know that you think their ideas are a load of bollocks.