South Africans condemn racist video targeting black cruise passengers in Durban

South Africans have reacted with disgust after a video with disparaging commentary against black and Indian cruise passengers emerged on social media. 

In the video trending on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), passengers queuing at the Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal in Durban are filmed by a passing car, with the occupants making ignorant and racist comments. 

The video was originally shared on Tiktok by a user calls @Lifer_786, but it was later posted on X by a user calling out the apparently white people speaking in the video.

The women in the video remark on the large number of black people queuing to board the ship, with one saying “there’s three, spot the whites”, another claims the ship will sink, apparently due to the large number of Indian passengers, and a third insists that they would cancel their trip if they were booked on the cruise.

Social media users were disappointed following the surfacing of the video and many shared their views on the matter, according to the Sunday Tribune. 

X user @clivesimpkins said: “Speechless at the terrible remarks made about a large number of orderly, queuing, primarily-black travellers waiting to board a cruise liner at the new Durban terminal. 

“Had a peep at the Cruise line’s prices. Average 6k pp *fully inclusive* for a 3 or 4 day cruise.”

@urbanjodi responded: “There’s absolutely nothing unusual about people queueing to board a vessel. I hope they all enjoy their cruise. For the people making racist comments they just revealed their ignorance about travel and their racism in one go.”

@EBee40, said: “I wish all who boarded that cruise in Durban the most wonderful holiday ever. (Hopefully all the bigots remained on land with their sour grapes and all.)”

And @ThisKg, said: “A bunch of people line up to get on a cruise ship in Durban and a bunch of Afrikaners organise under a tweet to undermine an entire race.”

Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal was officially opened by President Cyril Ramaphosa in November at the beginning of the current cruise season. 

The president said that the cruise terminal was a vital step forward in positioning Durban as a premier cruise destination, while MSC Cruises, which funded the development of the cruise terminal, has said it is making a strategic long-term investment in the SA cruise sector. 

MSC Splendida primarily homeports in Durban for the season, offering passengers the opportunity to sail to Portuguese Island, Pomene Bay, and Reunion or Mauritius. The ship also spends part of the season in Cape Town, sailing roundtrip to Namibia.

At around R6,000 per person for a four-day cruise from Durban, an MSC Cruises holiday is very much a middle class vacation option, providing a premium all-inclusive experience at a reasonably affordable price.

The South African middle class represents around 20% of the population, with the black middle class having grown considerably since the end of Apartheid. Black middle class South Africans now represent around 7% of the population, or 3.4 million people.

That growth has been mirrored in the cruising demographics of the country, with the largely all-white cruise market of the 1990s now made up of all the demographic groups of the SA population.