A photo of Scott Disick and his daughter Penelope has sparked outrage among internet users.
It’s no secret social media can be a fully old place, and sometimes what starts off as a simple post can cause absolute chaos.
This is exactly what happened to the American TV personality, who rose to fame while appearing on Keeping Up With The Kardashians (KUWTK), alongside his former long-term partner Kourtney Kardashian Barker.
Together, the pair share three children, Mason Penelope and Reign, who were all born during their on-off relationship from 2006 to 2015.
While fans of the reality series always appeared to root for Kourtney and Scott’s relationship, it was the latter’s ongoing struggles with substance abuse that eventually led to them calling time on their love affair.
Scott Disick remains close to the Kardashians
Following their split, Scott has remained a main-stay in the Kardashian family, having lost both of his own parents and admitting Kris Jenner remains the closest thing he has to real family, outside of his children.
Kris promised to keep Scott close and the 42-year-old has also maintained a close bond with former sister-in-law Khloe, despite the pair not getting along well at the start of his relationship with Kourtney.
Kourtney has now found her happily ever after with long-time friend and neighbor, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, tying the knot in May 2022 at a lavish wedding in Portofino, Italy.
However, she and Scott are still very much in each other’s lives due to co-parenting; something which Kourtney addressed during an episode of KUWTK, when she said: “Scott and I, we’re going to be in each other’s lives forever. We are soulmates, in a sense. No matter what, whether we’re ever together or not.”
While both still appear on the family’s latest show, Hulu’s The Kardashians, outside of parenting, Kourney’s main focus is her business Lemme, while Scott flips homes.
Scott has also gained an impressive following of more than 28 million on Instagram, but it was a post with his daughter Penelope which appeared to ruffle feathers among his following.
“It’s a parent’s responsibility to teach a kid to do the right thing,” one person commented, while another added: “Ignorance at its finest.”
A third wrote: “All that wealth, you’d think some would go towards education on ignorance and cultural sensitivity.”
Posts including Scott and Kourtney’s kids cause backlash
This isn’t the first time the Disick children have sparked outrage on social media, after Kourtney posted a photo of then-eight-year-old Reign giving the middle finger, not once but on multiple occasions, several years apart.
“I don’t think it’s hilarious! Bad behavior,” one follower slammed, while another declared: “Kourtney doesn’t know how to parent, every time I see her kids they’re always doing something bad.”
On another occasion, Kourtney filmed Penelope and Reign riding in the back of Travis’ vintage Chevrolet convertible, without modern cross-strap seat belts.
Back to Scott’s post, however, which understandably caused a lot of upset among people on social media.
It all comes down to offensive racial stereotypes, one of which being people making fun of the East Asian eye shape.
In East Asian countries, the common eye feature is epicanthic folds, also known as monolid eyes, where the upper eyelid meets the inner corner of the eye.
One way people are racist towards these communities is by using their fingers to pull back their eyes, trying to mimic their features.
The ‘slant-eyes’ stereotype is a racist slur against East Asian people, which according to Dictionary.com, originated in 19th-century Western propaganda, when Asian immigrants were regularly depicted with yellow skin, buck teeth and slit eyes.
Scott Disick’s post caused outrage
In Scott’s post, Penelope unfortunately appears to be doing exactly this, pulling her eyelids up — though there’s no insinuation that she has any understanding of what she’s doing, or the offence it would cause, given her young age.
To make matters worse, they are eating at an Asian restaurant with chopsticks on the table as they smile for the photo.
Many people in the comments believed this was Penelope doing the Asian ‘slant eyes’ slur because they were at an Asian restaurant.One person questioned: “Why the F is his daughter doing that? Eating Asian food and being racist??”
Others took a more empathetic approach by suggesting Penelope was simply pulling what she believed to be a ‘funny face.’
“You people are disgusting talking about a child being racist because she made a funny face?” one fan wrote, while another commented: “How is that racist? I see a little child making a silly face.”
A third added: “I’m Chinese. If you mock Asian eyes, you pull OUT not UP.”
