This is not at all how I understood the riots. Roughly: a bus driver arrived in an area where people were partying in the street, and refused to let in a very intoxicated fellow. This fellow somehow ended up in front of the bus (I think he decided to lie there) and got run over by the driver (I doubt intentionally). As is customary in the country of origin of said partying folks, the crowd got angry and "defended" its own. Within two hours, the police had restored peace.

After examining the situation, the government decided to make street drinking illegal in the area during the hours where further flash mobs were likely, and restricted alcohol sales island-wide during night hours (10.30pm - 7.30am).

Now, the suspects happened to be one race and the driver another, but people weren't protesting for racial reasons, it was a drunk crowd flashing up after it got sparked that happened to be mostly from a couple countries.

This is in stark contrast to, say, the 1964 race riots and similar riots around the region at that time against the Straits Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, or more recently, Ferguson in the US, which were explicitly about race. I suspect that the context of the Singapore riots was then lost on journalists who couldn't resist fitting them into their more common narrative of race or class based protest.