Ntokozo Qwabe has his final say on #TipGate: ‘there is, in reality, no freedom of speech in a black body’

Last month Ntokozo Qwabe made the news after he wrote of his happiness at making a waitress shed ‘white tears’ when his friend refused to tip until she ‘returned the land’. Since then, a crowdfunder was set up to raise money to compensate the waitress for the incident, while Qwabe — who is a key figure in Oxford’s Rhodes Must Fall movement — has made several comments that suggest he feels little remorse over the debacle.

Now back in Oxford, the postgraduate student has offered his ‘final say’ on the incident after being greeted with a host of death threats on return. Qwabe says the Senior Dean of his college has had to meet with him to discuss his safety, while he may also have to appear before the South African Human Rights Commission after he was reported for ‘hate speech’:

‘On return to Oxford, I was summoned to the office of the Senior Dean at my college – in order to discuss my “health and safety within the college, and Oxford more generally” – following a flow of death threats and safety hazards directed at violating my bodily integrity.