Young Singaporeans are ready to talk about race. Are their parents?

When Singapore’s police said this month they were investigating opposition politician Raeesah Khan, 26, for allegedly racist social media posts, public reaction was split. Some citizens agreed with police that she had promoted “enmity” between racial and religious groups by asking whether Singapore authorities discriminated against citizens and if wealthy Chinese and white people were treated differently by the law.

But another group took issue with this view, pointing out that her comments – one made two years ago and another made in May on Facebook – served to highlight incidents of racism that minority groups had experienced in their everyday lives.

While a visibly shaken Khan, in the midst of campaigning with the Workers’ Party for the July 10 general election, publicly apologised for her comments and said she would cooperate with police investigations, #IstandwithRaeesah trended on Twitter.

An illustration of Khan with the words “We stand with Raeesah” created by an Instagram user had more than 22,000 likes and were reposted by other users whose profiles indicated they were younger Singaporeans.

Reaction to the episode suggests Singapore’s youth want more leeway to discuss issues of race and religion, analysts say, contrasting it to how the government had traditionally managed such conversations in the majority-Chinese society, to prevent a free-for-all approach that might inflame tensions.