The gist was there, connecting it automatically to apartheid was not. I didn't even know whats his nuts was South African, or that District 9 was District 6 simply flipped upside down. I think apartheid was about one paragraph in a middle school social studies book.
It would be like making a sci fi movie of the burning of black wall street, and then expecting everybody else in the world to be familiar with it. People could still figure it out, but I feel that it would be more impactful to Americans.