With Regards to the Judicious Application of the Race Card

The Ministry for the Internal Understanding of New and Confusing Polokwane Resolutions has noted, with much alarm and shaking of jowls, that Cadres have been taking dreadful liberties with the revered Race Card, and using it in galling and unspeakable ways. The recent Caster Semenya saga springs to mind in that regard. To be honest, this is just one of many ways in which Comrades have been straying from the straight and narrow road, which is the National Democratic Revolution. The Ministry has therefore elected to compile a short Race Card crash course to aid Comrades in their daily struggles against the reactionary, right-wing, capitalist enemies.

 

Understandably, the more senior Comrades may find this guide to be old news, but it is important to revisit old teachings, Comrades.

 

The Beginner’s Guide to the Race Card

 

• The Race Card is a very potent weapon, Comrades. But like all weapons, it has its limitations. It is only effective against former oppressors. It is therefore only really available to the masses of an oppressed dispensation. Thus you cannot just cast the Race Card around willy-nilly as if it were koeksisters at a Boksburg braai. Once you’ve established that you are indeed an oppressed mass, and that your intended target is an oppressor, you can pull the Race Card.

• Like the nuclear bomb, the Race Card can be extremely potent, in the right hands. Just because it is such a powerful weapon, it doesn’t mean that Comrades can dispense with strategy. There is a very specific and delicate procedure for deploying the Race Card, which is guaranteed fool-proof.

• The Race Card works like this: if you find yourself in a sticky situation, with your options running out, your first line of defence should be the Race Card. You can’t first rely on defences like sexism and expect to be able to pull the Race Card when your initial defence fails. It’s either the Race Card first up or nothing. Otherwise you’ll end up looking silly like our northern neighbour, he with the Brazil-cut on his upper lip. He is an excellent example of the Imprudent Application of the Race Card. So remember Comrades, accuse your foe of racism first, then establish facts afterwards.

• If you have been smart about this so far, and have pulled out the Race Card at the first opportunity, almost any other retort will do at this point. Leonard Chuene, the president of Athletics South Africa really fouled things up with his defence of Caster Semenya. He pulled the Race Card after he had the IAAF of almost everything else. Juvenile mistake. Other forms of defence which work excellently (after the Race Card has been used): nepotism, favouritism, sexism, Eurocentric belief systems, imposition; in fact, almost anything that has -ism attached to the end.
  

• Finally, always remember that once you have deployed the Race Card, under no circumstances can you retract it. This isn’t a disadvantage, Comrade. You’ve got something to be obstinate about. As anyone will tell you, that is by far the best position to be in an argument.

 

We at the Ministry of Internal Understanding trust that Cadres will be more careful in the future with the use of the Race Card (yes, we’re looking right at you, Bra Stoff).

 

COMRADE GOOD CHARLIE

Minister of Internal Understanding