Graphic: A doctored 'Save the Children' image of a destitute Syrian girl. Its self a piece of propaganda meant to tug on our heart strings and guilt and intended to solicit financial donations.
The caption: // "I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life… all at the expense of someone else," reads the text on the illustration above. "I have an idea. I'll become a refugee." //
This subverts the original message and the original purpose of the image. Instead of pity, The caption wants us to be angry at the child in the image for being grasping (wanting gourmet food and luxuries) for being lazy (not earning them but wanting others to pay) and for being manipulative (she can get all she wants by deciding to make herself a refugee).
It is racist because the image is chosen to represent all middle east people. If we didn't know she was Syrian, she could quite easily be Palestinian, Iraqi, Kurdish. And the caption says they are lazy, greedy and manipulative. And the "wanting others to pay" partpresumably means us, so we are portrayed as better, and they as inferior. Which is essence is what racism is - our race is better than your race.