Political incorrectness in Saudi Arabia

Must not mention poverty, apparently

Despite offering several apologies, a Saudi man has found himself at the center of an unending furor of social media anger after Snapchatting an offensive selfie with a African immigrant girl who was rummaging through a dumpster in the kingdom.

While walking, Faisal Hafez noticed a young girl rummaging through the garbage, apparently looking for items that her family could resell or use. As the child was wearing an Al-Ittihad football jersey, Hafez said he found it humorous to see the jersey in the trash as he is a fan of rival football team Al-Ahli.

Hafez snapped the selfie and included a caption reading, “Look at where al-Ittihad is, in the bin.” Sharing the image via SnapChat, Hafez probably never realized the storm of anger the image would bring via Twitter.

The message quickly went viral at the beginning of last week, and tweeters within Saudi Arabia viewed the actions of Hafez not only as highly insensitive to the plight of the poor girl but also racist, as she is an African immigrant.

The storm on Twitter has already led Hafez to apologize publicly through several videos. He also brought presents to the girl and took more selfies with her and the gifts. He videoed himself handing her the presents, apologizing and kissing her head.

Still, social media hasn’t been satisfied with what they saw as a fake apology to downplay the controversy. Users shared the new selfie and continued to criticize the man and his “fake smiles.”

SOURCE