Social media influencer Wendy Cheng, better known as Xiaxue, blamed past sexual assault for racially offensive tweets now being investigated by the police.
In a lengthy blog post today, the 36-year-old online personality said the police had questioned her motive for posting the old messages and told her to remove them after receiving a number of complaints. Cheng, who said she gave a statement to the authorities, went on to link the messages to frequent sexual assault when she was a minor.
“By now, some of you may have seen that some idiots went to dig up 10 year old tweets of mine and reported them to the police. And yes it’s true, the police came to my house yesterday and took my statement,” she wrote in a post titled Raeesah Khan, GE 2020, and being labeled a Racist.
Race has become a flashpoint in the final days before Friday’s election, and one of Cheng’s past posts purportedly targeted migrant workers.
Singapore is seeing a flurry of race-related police complaints being filed after an investigation was launched into Workers’ Party candidate Raeesah Khan for allegedly promoting racial enmity in the past. Supporters say she was calling out systemic inequality by alleging unequal justice for minority groups compared to residents of Chinese and European descent. #IStandWithRaeesah has been trending online since Monday.
Xiaxue said the officers were obligated by protocol to take action.
“I’m fine, the police were pretty nice and just asked why I wrote what I wrote etc. It is important to note that once a police report is filed, the police are are obligated to make an investigation. This by no means shows I will be charged,” she added. “By instruction of the police, I was told to remove the offending articles but they have more or less gone viral now, so really, there is no point in the deleting.”
Man reports Xiaxue to police over 2010 ‘little India’ tweet
One person who reported Cheng was 21-year-old Vignesh Sankar. He told Coconuts Singapore yesterday he had done so over a 2010 tweet in which she described a group of people who sexually abused people, leered at underage girls and crowded Little India.
While Cheng did not explicitly identify which group she was referring to, Sankar said it was clear she was “trying to stir up anti-Indian sentiments.”
Cheng has not responded to messages seeking comment since yesterday.
In today’s post, she said she could not remember which group she was referring to in the tweet but went on to refer to them as “Group B” and said she had been sexually abused by members of the group when she was younger.
Man files police report against PAP over statement on Raeesah Khan
Cheng alleged that men groped her, sat on her, and exposed themselves, among other incidents.
“When I was a child and teenager, I was often sexually assaulted by members of this group. They would touch my boobs or butt on public transport (particularly buses), they grabbed my hands, one of them literally sat on my lap on the bus. All while I was in my school uniform, as a minor. I’ve encountered flashers in lifts, public masturbation more times than I can count, you name it,” she wrote.
“These tweets are but a very small slice of a much larger story. Not finding an excuse for my behavior. It is what it is. If you are still offended, I don’t give a fuck,” she wrote.
“I was speaking from trauma, and it may not be polite, but it’s real. My tweets were emotionally charged, but haven’t you posted rude shit before when you were angry? Once again, if you never experienced what I did, you have no right to tell me how to feel,” she added.
In the two other offending tweets, Cheng had questioned why there were many members of the Bangladeshi community in Jurong East and made repeated use of the N-word to explain its use in different contexts, respectively.
An online petition “Punish Xiaxue for seditious content” has garnered more than 10,000 signatures. Some are emailing to brands that have worked with Cheng to dissuade them from endorsing her.
Cheng also addressed this in her post by shining a spotlight on her child and elderly parents and questioned how she would care for them without an income.
Toward the end of the post, Cheng turned her attention to Raeesah Khan’s support for American political activist Angela Davis, calling on the Workers’ Party to explain why they had fielded a candidate with “extreme left-wing views.”
Other stories you should check out:
