I'm not South African, but we had a horse groom/ringer from S. Africa for a summer during his 'walkabout' (yes, I know they call it that in Australia too) and he refered to every black guy he ran across as a kaffir, in a derogatory manner--he hated black people and was proud of it. Maybe I was misunderstood and he meant it like "holmes" or "brother"? Dunno. Violent bastard though--beat up several college girlfriends before one would testify against him and they shipped him back to his dad in Pretoria.