We really, really need to stop looking for racial tension when there is none.

Yesterday, our newly crowned Miss South Africa was called out for wearing gloves during a charity drive she was involved in.

Twitter reacted after Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters shared pictures of herself hanging out with the children on Wednesday, wearing latex gloves:

Twitter swiftly reacted:

Oh dear.

Of course, this meant that Nel-Peters had to defend herself, which she did through a video posted to Twitter:

All the volunteers on site wore gloves today because we honestly thought that it’s the right thing to do while working with food and while handing out food to young kids.

Watch it yourself:

To everyone asking about the gloves, I truly hope that you'll hear my heart and understand that it came from a place of wanting to do good. pic.twitter.com/Pl5amM2gEM

— Demi-LeighNel-Peters (@DemiLeighNP) July 5, 2017

This was followed by a statement released by Sun International which read:

It is standard hygiene practice that ready-to-eat food be prepared and served without bare hand contact.

Carol Dyantyi, the programme director at Ikageng, the community centre Nel-Peters went to, said it “was unfortunate that the gloves became the focal point of interest in the soup drive,” reports HuffPost:

It was such a successful day and I am sorry that the focus is now on the gloves rather than the positive impact it had. The story behind one of the pictures is fantastic. An eight-year-old deaf girl wanted to teach Demi-Leigh how to say ‘thank you’ in sign language while Demi was still involved in food preparation. Demi was only too happy to pose for a picture. For us who were there, it was such a moving moment.

Others on Twitter also defended her, sharing pictures that sent different messages:

I rate this is over those rumours that this year’s competition was rigged. It’s going to be one difficult year for Miss Nel-Peters.

To her credit, she ended her day with a little sass. Check out the glove kiss at the end:

Hey SA , here’s my challenge to you… #misssachallenge pic.twitter.com/MaeT6Q31jJ

— Demi-LeighNel-Peters (@DemiLeighNP) July 6, 2017

[source:huffingtonpost]