'Racist' black Oxford student who became an international hate figure after refusing to tip a Caucasian waitress refuses to defend his actions to 'white media'

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A black Oxford student who became an international hate figure after refusing to tip a Caucasian waitress has refused to defend his actions before 'white media'.

Ashleigh Schultz, 24, was reduced to tears when Ntokozo Qwabe and a friend wrote on their bill 'We will give tip when you return the land' at Obz Cafe in the Western Cape, South Africa.

He bragged online that they had made her cry 'typical white tears', leaving him 'unable to stop smiling because something so black and wonderful had happened'. 

Ashleigh Schultz (right), 24, was reduced to tears when Ntokozo Qwabe (left) and a friend wrote on their bill 'We will give tip when you return the land' at Obz Cafe in the Western Cape, South Africa 

The incident last week ignited a backlash against Mr Qwabe, who was branded a racist bully.

In a Facebook post responding to the outrage, Mr Qwabe - a leader of the campaign to remove a Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford - said he would only speak to the 'white media when we have the land back'.

In the message, now deleted, he wrote that it was a 'pity' posts he had made about the matter had been removed by Facebook for 'violating Facebook community standards,' Sowetan Live reports.

The website said his message noted that 'white' people had started a petition to have his scholarship revoked and had launched a campaign to have him expelled from Oxford University.

He said others were attempting to lodge a hate speech campaign with the South African Himan Rights Commission.

But he added that he was going to have 'lots of fun' explaining 'why asking for land stolen from my ancestors isn't "hate speech"'. 

Online campaigns sprang up to 'tip the waitress', Miss Schultz, after the cafe incident.

South African Mr Qwabe is a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, meaning he receives money from the Rhodes estate to study.

In a Facebook post responding to the outrage, Mr Qwabe - a leader of the campaign to remove a Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford - said he would only speak to the 'white media when we have the land back'

Ntokozo Qwabe bragged online that they had made her cry ‘typical white tears’, leaving him ‘unable to stop smiling because something so black and wonderful had happened’

But he is also one of the leaders of the Rhodes Must Fall movement, which wants the statue of the 19th-century imperialist removed from Oriel College.

One of the online campaigns was triggered by an outraged South African, Sihle Ngobese, who decided to pay the tip himself and said: 'Qwabe is someone that claims to speak to the downtrodden and the disenfranchised yet he has the audacity to bully a working-class young woman.

'I just wanted to make a small gesture to show South Africans that if we love and respect each other it makes our country great.' 

In his incendiary Facebook post last Thursday, Mr Qwabe boasted he and his friend – a 'radical non-binary trans black activist' – had refused to pay the 'white woman' a tip, instead leaving the note.

Mr Qwabe wrote: 'She sees the note and starts shaking. She leaves us and bursts into typical white tears.' He said a male waiter then approached the table to 'annoy us more with his own white tears telling us that he finds our act racist'.

He added: 'It is irrelevant whether you personally have land/wealth or you don't. Go to your fellow white people and mobilise for them to give us the land back.'