A d ismal black response to racism

MANNING Marable once remarked the tragedy of the early 20th century black intelligentsia in South Africa was its inability to comprehend the full meaning of white racism.

I argue the situation is worse than that. Ever since blacks entered the annals of South African history in the nineteenth century as “Savages”, “Caffres”, “Tambookies”, “Fingoes”, “Bechuanas”, and generally as “native tribes”, the black elite, in the form of chiefs and black Christian converts, have consistently misread, misunderstood, and mistook white racism for something it was not – a white benefactor. For instance, Ngqika, the Xhosa chief known to his English allies