Singaporean influencer posts seemingly racist Insta story update over F1 weekend

You would think that given the events that took place over the past few years, people would exercise a bit more sensitivity when it comes to what they post on social media. But it seems like not everyone got the memo.

Sheena Phua, a Singapore influencer with over 76k followers on Instagram, landed in trouble over the weekend when she posted about "2 huge obstructions" that were blocking her view at one of the F1 concerts.

The problem? Pictured in her IG Story were two tall Sikh men wearing white turbans. A screenshot of this was posted on musician Subhas Nair’s Instagram, and the general reaction can be summed up in this comment:

Sheena took to her IG stories after public backlash to apologise, clarifying that she was referring to the two men’s heights. She also added that her message had been “misinterpreted” and she wasn’t being “racist and culturally insensitive”.

Yeah, sure, we all have blind spots where we might not be aware of how our actions might be hurtful or offensive towards another group of people, but was that Insta Story update even necessary in the first place?

[embed]https://twitter.com/plspreeti/status/1175745896127926279[/embed]

Here’s to hoping that we see fewer of these incidents in 2020.

This article was first published in CLEO Singapore.