In 2014 my wife and I lived in Mpumalanga in a large and almost exclusively black area during my wife’s community service. Basically, the only white people within 20kms lived at the hospital with us. I would like to tell three stories of people we met during our time there, without emotional judgement or charge. This is just what I observed.
The Worst
At the hospital there was a group of staff who were competent enough to perform their jobs, but they were unbelievably lazy. Instead of doing their jobs, they sat on their phones the whole day, and left their tasks to the other, more motivated staff (black and white). They arrived late for work and left early, often taking 2 hours for lunch instead of the allowed 1. When it came to performance reviews, and their superior raised issue with their performance, they responded with attacking the superior on unrelated issues including racist allegations (which I know well were unfounded – ask if you’d like a laugh), and doing anything possible to divert attention from their appalling work ethic. This also included threatening fellow workers with African magic should they report their poor workplace conduct. This sort of behaviour resulted in many people dying through neglect and malpractice and without any consequence.
A general trend at the hospital (and in the area in general) was also to use a significant portion of one’s salary on a new car. Some of these drivers had had their licences a matter of weeks and had purchased brand new Mercedes, BMW and Audi cars, with monthly payments nearing 50% of their salary.
The Best
There were other staff, unlike the first group, who worked a hard, full day. They carried not only their own burden of work but also that of the lazy staff who didn’t care. These staff were motivated to go on courses and apply new skills. They had a deep care for their patients and did what they could to help them to recovery. They even worked overtime, thought it wasn’t required.
This group (much smaller than the first), also seemed wiser with their money. One lady in particular had her drivers licence but had chosen to save instead of buying a car at all. Last year she bought a flat in Pretoria that she never intends living in. She bought it as an investment to rent out and when that is providing more income than the bond repayments, she will buy herself a small car and then a house to live in.
The Middle Ground
There were also many other people who seemed neither particularly abrasive and lazy nor particularly hard working and friendly. They did basically what was required of their jobs, maybe cutting some corners on their required working time, but still eventually got their jobs done.
Common Factors
What I find interesting about our experience last year is that almost everyone in these groups were had so much in common. They were all black, all lived in the same area, most of them born nearby, and all educated at university level. Despite this, their behaviour was worlds apart.
The Point
Clearly the difference between these groups is not racial. I would suggest that the difference is cultural. Cultural lines are often along racial lines (in South Africa at least) and so we become accustomed to thinking of race and culture as one, but they really aren’t.
Here are two quick example of why I think the distinction is important:
1) My wife went to a course in a nearby town. Her and her friends from nearby towns (all white) sat together and all the black staff sat together. One might assume it was because of race. The real reason though is that the black staff were inclined to speak siSwati (their home language) and my wife and her friends were inclined to speak English. It seems racial but it’s actually not.
2) If someone who had never worked with black people was to work with the first, lazy group of people I described, they may be tempted to assume that all black people are lazy, rude and abrasive. Clearly that would be a terrible generalisation, and a very different one compared to if they had worked with the hard-working group. The point being that some negative generalisations may be unfairly attributed to race when they could fairly be attributed to a certain culture or work ethic (or a bunch of other stuff).
I think that the great South African debate could be helped a lot by distinguishing between race and culture.
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Irresistibly Fish 
Nice view Mike.
Interesting observation, Michael. I was brought up in a home (a middle-class, white, rural, english-speaking, anglo-saxon(?) KZN home) with fairly Calvinist thinking when it comes to work, adding value and doing one’s share of whatever work needed to be done. Hard work was definitely seen as a virtue. This to the degree that I get depressed if I go too long without making something, fixing something, or doing something of value.
Laziness irks me, but I can stomach it from people who are content with their lot in life and make a conscious choice to take a slower, less frantic path in life. What enrages me, almost irrationally so, is people who are lazy and yet discontented with their lot and seem to think it is acceptable to expect the same reward as those who work hard, without working for it. The biblical parable where the workers who signed on late in the day got the same wage as those who signed on at dawn is one I wrestle with still! I understand grace when it comes to faith, but I battle with the allegory.
So, what do you think is the cause of the difference in the attitudes and wisdom of the individuals you describe here? Do people not believe in themselves and their potential and abilities? Do we have generations of people who yearn for more value in life, but believe they can only get it by being given it or taking it, rather than creating it?
I yearn for a South Africa with strong work ethic, where we build on what we have, with both grit and determination, no matter our station in life or what our roots are.
What can we do to influence people’s attitudes?
Some great questions, thank you Dave. Hopefully we will have some people with som helpful opinions or ideas…
Dave, thanks for the reply. I agree with your sentiment.
I don’t think I was there long enough last year to figure out what the difference is. I can speculate perhaps but I don’t really know.
I also long for a South Africa with a strong work ethic, starting with me.
Hi Mike, I can see that your heart is anti-racist and anti-generalising and pro-people, but I think there’s a slight problem in what you’re saying, that may speak to the entrenched paradigms that so many South Africans have been brought up in, and so may provide an important leaping-off point for thinking about ‘race’ and ‘culture’.
You say: “What I find interesting about our experience last year is that almost everyone in these groups were had so much in common. They were all black, all lived in the same area, most of them born nearby, and all educated at university level. Despite this, their behaviour was worlds apart.” So these groups – classified by you, in ranks of ‘work ethic’ are all black. But they differ from each other in their behaviour and attitudes.
While it’s good you realised this, I’m not sure why you found this interesting, surprising or noteworthy? That within a workforce, some people work hard and others don’t? Does this say more about your expectations of black people than about the people themselves? (I’m purposely trying to ask these hard questions – I don’t mean that you were intentionally being racist/ prejudiced or anything).
Secondly, ‘culture’ has historically been used as a synonym for race (often euphemistically) as you point out, and I don’t know if it’s a more helpful marker of identity. I think we’d be better off looking at our institutional cultures, or education cultures, to look at why some South Africans have a poor work ethic etc. Is it to do with history? Is it to do with poor management at the institution? ‘Culture’ assumes it’s something built into a specific language/ethnic/class group, so I don’t think it gets us away from racism/ prejudice.
Some great questions Andrea and thank you for asking them so graciously. That put words to some of the unease i felt about this post but could not put my finger on. Knowing you both as well as i do i know are both genuine in your search for truth and answers so would love to see some continued engagement on this.
It is definitely a cultural difference, because you will find such groups amongst other races. As Andrea has pointed out, we should look at the root cause rather than symptom to better understand the work ethic behavior. In my experience it is about what drives you as individual, what are the circumstances that have lead to where you are and what are your goals. Definitely something worth knowing what drives work ethic. Thanks for sharing your experience Mike 🙂
I agree with you, Xolu – we need to look at the root causes and how we can all work together to stamp out corruption/ poor work ethic/ inefficiency etc. in our country. But I really think words are important, and I think saying it’s a ‘cultural difference’ could easily be misinterpreted as meaning that some characteristics are inherent to a specific group (I know this is not what you mean though, and possibly not what Michael means, but I think we need to be clear in our terminology. ‘Cultural difference’ was used as a motivation for Bantu education and the creation of homelands, after all! ).
I think South Africans, because of our history of apartheid, are still a little obsessed with classifications. Why does every social problem need to be about either ‘culture’ or ‘race’?
I’m also just questioning the relevance of the whole anecdote. Michael, I think you are reaching towards not equating certain characteristics with a whole race, and it’s of course great that you come to this conclusion than to a generalised, racist view extrapolated from a few cases. You end by saying: “The point being that some negative generalisations may be unfairly attributed to race when they could fairly be attributed to a certain culture or work ethic (or a bunch of other stuff)”, which seems to suggest transcending an ethnic, specific idea of ‘cutlure’ (“a bunch of other stuff”,)… But then you give the example of the SiSwati people hanging out together, which emphasises that you do (at least sometimes) see ‘culture’ as a definable thing (here, by language group). So it’s a bit confusing.
And then it ends: “I think that the great South African debate could be helped a lot by distinguishing between race and culture.” My suggestion is: How about we transcend these labels completely? (I don’t mean by ignoring that the way society defines ‘race’ is important in the lived experiences of people – that’s another story)
Of course people can self-identify and feel pride in a certain ‘culture’ or even race – Afrikaans, SiSwati, Greek ,Chinese, whatever – but when we start attaching values, as external observers, to ‘cultures’ that are not our own, and are not as definable as they might seem, that it becomes a muddy area. I hope that makes sense, and let me know what either of you (and you too, B 🙂 think about some of these kind of pedantic but important (I think) attempts at teasing out the terminology used in the original post.
Yes. Yes. Yes. No more labels. Flip!
Thanks for the comment Andrea. I must say I’m not 100% sure why I find it noteworthy. Perhaps I do have some tendency to label that I haven’t been aware of.
One can’t understand their own world around them from the inside. You have to look from the outside. I suppose I always assumed that the diversity in people in the big city was because of a vast variety of backgrounds of the people living in it. Then when we moved into a much more homogeneous group (in many respects), I suppose I expected people’s behaviour to be more similar.
I do note that you seem to have focussed in on work ethic a bit but my idea was more broad than that.
Ya, I think ‘culture’ was not the right term to use. I’m not sure what would’ve been though. The point I suppose was that it wasn’t racial, education, area of birth, language, current living or a few other things, but there was a difference.
Thanks for your response, Michael. I guess what I’m suggesting is for us to think about the categorisations we unconsciously make. Why did you originally see the group of people at the hospital as ‘homegenous’? Because they all had the same skin colour? Or all spoke the same language?
I think it’s awesome that you did realise that a group of seemingly homogenous black people are not all the same, but I think that your original perception says a lot about our society (which is interesting in itself, so in that way it is noteworthy and so it’s good you’ve brought it up and are thinking about why it’s important – I see that and it’s helpful of you to bring it to light.)
What I’m suggesting is that we tend not to look at a town/ company full of white people and be surprised that some of them were different in work ethic/ attitude/ social responsibility/ morality. We tend to think of people in our OWN culture as diverse ‘individuals’ while we look at other groups as…well… groups – it’s both an unconscious tendency, and something we should be conscious of.
I don’t know them, but I think that there’s a difference between the various hospital staff, not because of ‘culture’ or anything, but because people are different. I’m quite different from my sister, for instance, in the way I see the world, and we’re related! It’s hard to pin down why, exactly. And some of those people even in the same ‘categories’ you set up will be different from others for different reasons. But obviously if there are larger issues regarding management or corruption or education or other social or historical reasons why some people do unhelpful things (e.g. not work hard, spend their money unwisely), those are important to look at too, but regardless of race, culture or any other label.
Sorry if I got a bit pedantic on the terms (I’m an academic, I can’t help it!) but I think words are important and have a lot of power and baggage attached to them… thanks for replying and engaging! 🙂
I think you’re missing me somewhere. The reason I wrote this wasn’t because I found it surprising or even noteworthy to myself. What I had before were ideas but what I have now is experience. The point was to convey my now-concrete experience and to challenge any readers who do still expect a uniform behaviour from a particular racial group.
While labelling people can often go badly, I still think there’s value in considering why two groups of people behave differently, especially if one behaviour is constructive and the other destructive. The interesting part for me is trying to pin down what the difference is and to encourage or promote the thing that produces the good behaviour. Without understanding what produces a behaviour, it’s difficult to change one’s own behaviour or encourage good behaviours in those we have influence with.
So, while the different behaviours at the hospital didn’t surprise me at all, what did surprise me maybe was that the reason wasn’t obvious. Before last year I would’ve thought that these behaviours would’ve been split along educational, faith, or perhaps even employment lines. My experience shows me that they aren’t and so I’m left wondering what does separate the two groups. Whatever it is, I feel we should encourage it.
Michael, I respectfully don’t think I’m missing you at all. I totally agree that we should investigate what leads to constructive behaviour (whether it’s effective education, or upbringing, or religion, or whatever else).
What I’m referring to is this statement; “What I find interesting about our experience last year is that almost everyone in these groups were had so much in common. They were all black, all lived in the same area, most of them born nearby, and all educated at university level. Despite this, their behaviour was worlds apart. ” Clearly this does indicate that you were interested and found noteworthy the way in which race/ background/ education level did not equal homegeneity in behaviour. And I think it’s great that, as you say, you are challenging people to not expect homogeneity amongst ‘race’ groups. But you didn’t really emphasise this in your original post as much as you have now, and that was what I wanted to draw more attention to.
My original point of challenge was that you then went on to say: “I would suggest that the difference is cultural”, and as you’ve said yourself, ‘cultural’ doesn’t really cut it, especially given its historical baggage, and what I’d continue to challenge you (and everyone else) and myself, is to be careful with words, and categories.
But I think we are totally on the same page in wanting to encourage whatever it is that makes some people positive/ hardworking/ committed to building South Africa and helping others!
.. Maybe to sum up in a better way than my ramble above: In searching for whatever it was (positive/ negative) that caused different behaviours in different members of staff, you noticed that it wasn’t along race lines (which says something about your/ our previous expectations), but in trying to work out what the difference then was, you were searching (unconsciously, maybe), for more labels, such as ‘culture’ or some other clear marker, which may be just as problematic as it continues to group people in artificial categories, whereas the ‘difference’ or ‘reason’ for these behaviours may be much more intangible… And this kind of attempt at generalising/ grouping is a problem particularly when we (as white people) study the behaviour of black people, because of the worldwide history of racism and black people’s lives being defined by white commentators. Hope that helps clarify a bit! 🙂