Brooklyn Beckham, the eldest son of David and Victoria Beckham, has learned a harsh social media lesson as he posted photos on Instagram he obviously thought was funny while traveling, but plenty of people online found it to be racist, and he suffered some serious backlash. Beckham posted photos of Chinese tourists, joking that he’s in Italy and the crowd is Chinese.
The Daily Mail says that Brooklyn Beckham posted several photos of Asian tourists on Instagram with a caption that many people thought was racist.
“No place like Italy innit.”
His photos showed Asian people in a gondola, and an Asian woman walking the aisles of a grocery store. Many people thought that Beckham was implying that an Asian presence in a European country somehow changed it, suggesting that they shouldn’t visit Italy.
After the backlash, Beckham changed the settings on his Instagram account and made it private, but not before many Instagram users could weigh in. After he shut down his Instagram account, people shared their thoughts on Twitter and Weibo to tell the young Beckham that he needs to expand his horizons.
“What should Italy look like? All White?”
Reporter News TV – Brooklyn Beckham accusée de « racisme » sur Instagram
– VIDEO https://t.co/BoW1CbCsgD
— Telesphore Teta (@TelesphoreTeta) October 5, 2018
The theme of the comments were about racism and bad manners.
“You think you’re so subtle in your words. I hope you’ll never come to Asia. People in Asia don’t like you anymore, you’re just a white boy with no manners.”
Some wondered if Beckham was saying that only white people should be able to tour the sites of Italy, and some wondered if he had permission to post their pics, or if he just assumed it was okay.
“What’s wrong for these Chinese tourists to take a holiday with their hard-earned money? They can go wherever they want. You’re nothing without your parents.”
But some people on Weibo, the Chinese search engine, said there are lots of Chinese people everywhere, and it’s not racist.
“Maybe he just posted the pictures because he didn’t expect to see so many Asians in a European country.”
The Evening Standard reported that the irony of the situation was that Brooklyn Beckham is not Italian, yet he is making the determination about what Italy should look like.
“An Englishman in Italy saying it’s not like Italy. Isn’t that a double standard?”
Others went on the social media pages of David Beckham to complain that his 19-year-old son is ill-mannered.
“I am very disappointed about your family’s education.”
Neither Brooklyn nor David Beckham was available for comment.