We're sure you've seen the video, which shows a costumed Sesame Street character ignoring two young Black girls during a parade at Sesame Place in Philadelphia.
The video was posted by the mother of one of the girls, who said that she didn't want the two girls to hug her. After the video was posted, social media users sounded off, with some sharing their outrage at what the video captured and others sharing other children's experiences at Sesame Place. According to an ABC NY report, civil rights attorney Ben Crump joined the girls' family in their call for Sesame Place to do better.
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We will never forget our Black children, even if that character ignores them. The family held a press conference outside of Sesame Workshop in New York City and said they have the right to be looked at and respected by other children. Will they use the moment to make it a teachable moment, not just with their words but also with their actions?
Another video shows a character pushing a child at a theme park, while another shows a boy being bypassed in a parade.
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If this happened to one of Kelly's children, the whole parade would have been in flames, she wrote. On The View, Goldberg shared how she contacted them about the incident.
It's insane if you think they didn't catch hell for what they did. She said that the two little girls are six-year-olds, they are cousins, and their favorite character was the one in the movie.
I talked to the people at Sesame Street. It's okay. I said that I work with them a lot. They said "Listen." Our characters make the children feel like they are the characters they expect them to be. Goldberg said that they were all over this. The news report was published. I'm pretty sure that a lot of what they're doing is coming from Sesame Workshop. We're sorry, but you need to know that you can't do that for children.
On their social media accounts, the park apologized and shared how they will conduct trainings to prevent situations like this from occurring again. On social media, the initial apology was not well received.
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The president and general manager of Sesame Place Park told WPVI-TV that she was aware of the Saturday afternoon protests. Since that night, the performer who played her has not worked. The employee may have been fired or not.
Valeriano said that they own what they said in the initial statement. If a meeting is needed, we are open for it. Emotions are raw but we need to learn and grow from them. We aren't going to fix it overnight.
If you need to be respectful and compassionate to children, is this the job for you?
People, let's do a better job. Ty Cole is a reporter based in New York and Los Angeles who covers everything in between. You can follow him on the social media sites.
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