“This Is so Dehumanising”: SA Disturbed by Clip of “Poverty Tourism” in Cape Town
A TikTok video of white tourists walking through a Cape Town township with wide smiles has left South Africans feeling sick. Content creator Blactivist, known as @blacthetruest, reacted to the clip originally posted by a man named Mzu.
Source: TikTok
Blactivist questioned who truly benefits when outsiders treat people’s daily hardships as entertainment. He made one point very clear from the start. Visiting a township is not automatically the problem. The real issue is what happens, or rather what does not happen, after the tourists leave.
He asked Mzansi to imagine their worst living conditions becoming a tourist attraction. He pointed out that residents wake up daily without running water, reliable electricity, or proper roads. Meanwhile, visitors film everything and then disappear without leaving anything behind.
When the cameras leave, nothing changes
Blactivist said the issue becomes worse when tours treat poverty like entertainment. People’s homes become content. Their struggles become someone else’s highlight reel. He stressed that community-led tours are a completely different story.
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He used a township like Soweto as an example of how township tourism can actually work. When locals guide the tours themselves, the money stays in the community. The people benefit directly instead of watching outsiders profit from their circumstances.
He also posed a sharp question. When do township residents ever get to tour the suburbs? South Africans in the comments agreed that filming people’s hardships without giving anything back strips people of their dignity.
See the reactions in the TikTok clip below:
Source: Briefly News
