A point in case is his recent column in the Sunday Times titled ‘Ubuntu is complicated across the colour bar’. In the article Ngcobo as good as agreed with the stereotype that Batswana are miserly (ba ngame). He gave an example with a friend’s Motswana wife who apparently counts chicken drumsticks in a pack and cooks enough food for her and her husband only. Ngcobo’s wife, who is apparently half Motswana, has always been, it seems, at pains to point out to her Zulu husband that it’s not all Batswana but specifically Bakgatla, who are misers. I suspect Ngocobo’s wife has never interacted with Bangwaketse and Bakalanga!
Most of the other points he made are partly true, especially when he noted that whites are different from blacks when it comes to small acts of politeness like offering guests food. My godparents are white Americans. When I lived with them several years ago I observed that while friends could pop by any time, they were rarely offered meals as is the norm at our home in a predominantly indigenous black township, where it’s acceptable for people to not only rock up unannounced but they must be served something to eat. At my godparents’ if ever the guests’ visit extended into dinnertime we would sit with growling tummies until they left! Although this is not standard practice among all white people, as someone with a multi-racial background, I have observed that we are all a bit different when it comes to gestures of botho (humility) and so forth.
