And now, from the manufacturers of blacks, whites and coconuts, a whole new race!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after decades of research and years of trials, the manufacturers of whites, blacks, coloureds, coconuts, Indians, plurals, tricamerals, old-style liberals, diehard Nats, Oranians, black diamonds — basically of anyone you know or have ever known — have invented a whole new race which, with immediate effect, replaces all races that have gone before, rendering them null and void.

The breakthrough occurred after it became clear that all previous races were essentially faulty in that no one component seemed able to operate at full potential in the vicinity of any other. This design fault has been ironed out, and the new race, the working title of which is simply “people” (so as not to offend any member of any of the former races), will know no colour.

All members of any of the former races are requested to report to one of thousands of reclassification centres that have been have set up throughout the country, where they will be fitted with racecard ^TM, which, once activated by our control centre, will render them colour-blind.

But wait, there’s more. Not only will new racecard make them incapable of seeing the colour of any member of any of the former races, it will also render them able to regard everybody they meet as their equals, regardless of which of the former races they belonged to before their reclassification as “people”.

Even complete strangers, whether on buses and trains or on the beach or even at a dinner party, will be thought of as equals by all “people”. This will be a boon to those who are weary of getting into arguments over the dinner table with members of other former races.

But that’s not all. As well as making “people” colour-blind, new racecard will also render them incapable of registering physical characteristics such as large noses, piggy eyes or enormous buttocks.

But these are not the only advantages of racecard. In a remarkable breakthrough, status will no longer be of any significance under the new classification system: racecard contains a chip that makes it of no consequence whether other “people” are rich or poor, or indeed drive a Mercedes Kompressor or an old Beetle with flowers on the bonnet. All such characteristics will henceforth be deemed of equal status, thus removing all of the old rivalries that led to so much resentment and crime.

“By making everybody of equal status, new racecard is expected to do away with crime altogether, as there will be no need for any ‘people’ to try to get more stuff than any other ‘people’. All ‘people’ will presume that all other ‘people’ are equally rich or poor,” said CEO Bongani Selebi.

But racecard offers even more than all of these remarkable features. Once fitted, new racecard instantly purges the bearer of all negative attitudes to members of the former races, so that it works retrospectively as well as progressively.

In addition, racecard enables bearers to regard the religious and political belief systems of other “people” to be equal to their own in status. An expected side effect is that “people” will no longer be able to tell the difference between the various political parties, or indeed a church, a mosque or a synagogue.

Finally, new racecard will instantly banish any associations people’s names would have had with particular (former) races, so that Koekemoer, Madikizela, Moodliar and Jacobs will be simply names to you, no longer presumed to represent people of certain groups.

“New racecard is just the thing for anybody in the new South Africa who wants to get ahead on equal terms with anybody else,” said Selebi, who added that he was delighted that he would no longer be regarded as a BEE appointment now that all the former whites in his employ would no longer know that he had formerly been black.