What do you think about the news story about Sesame Place being racist?

This is beyond ridiculous. The fact that this is a “story” makes me sad.

There’s a few more videos on YouTube as well.

Probably better to gather more video evidence and make a compilation since America gas lights anything black people say.

We know the truth but we all know the truth doesn’t matter.

There was a probably a disgruntled white person in the suit, and everyone knows the George Floyd protests angered a lot of racists. They’re basically tired of everyone talking about black people and want to move on because it makes them uncomfortable.

I guess even make believe characters can be racist. Why not?

At first I gave the person in costume the benefit of the doubt that maybe that was the end of the parade and maybe no more time for handshakes and hugs, but the excuse she gave was that the kids were out of her sightline.

There are now a few more videos of Black children being overlooked, but I am still wondering if a bunch of videos are going to come out of Black children being hugged and paid attention to, to show it is not really a consistent pattern. I am not sure if those other videos are of the same actor in costume.

Sesame started as and has always been one of the most diverse children shows in existence. Whoopi Goldberg on The View today said she spoke to Sesame Street, someone at the parent company I think, and they take it all very seriously and are addressing it. I am sure it is partly they do feel strongly about the Sesame Street mission of being inclusive, and also a CYA regarding the business itself.

If this actor does overlook Black children consistently, she should be fired. I’m waiting to see if that is the case.

The story is not about Sesame Place being racist. It is a story about an employee at Sesame Place accused of being racist.

Who should be surprised that a bonafide racist might wind up in a costume at Sesame Place? I mean the job is on par with flipping burgers at Jack in the Box. And that costume can conceal a multitude of sins. There will be habitual drunks and (wait for it) pedophiles distributed among the hundreds of thousands of furry wage slaves inflicted on kids. Depend on it. It’s simply the human condition. If the allegations are found to be true, simply fire the bum and move on. There are more threatening things to freak you out.

To me it seems like a bit of a stretch to say that this is a result of racism.

I guess we’ll see. To me I think it’s at worst a costume character actor who isn’t so great at it. Deliberately ignoring black children seems like the stuff of fantasy. I understand why there might be a tendency for a black person to equate a snub with racism. But the two are not the same and racism would have to be proven here.

@Demosthenes
The stuff of fantasy…? Kinda like white doctors literally thinking black people felt less pain and treating them different medically?

Does that seem like fantasy, too?

Do we now need to crack open the head of every person to know their intent just because someone films them and makes an accusation of their own belief?
I put myself in that situation and can only come up with one word – snowflake. If this happened to my kids and myself (irregardless of color), I would answer something if my child brought it up. I wouldn’t scar them worse by making it a viral or court situation.

@Forever_Free I don’t think you’ve walked around in the shoes of a Black person who gets these kinds of micro-aggressions every day.

EVEN MORE political correctness run amok!

Actually, @Forever_Free does bring up a point regarding how the mother chose to handle it. She could have sent an email to customer relations or lawyer up and go to the media. If she had chose customer relations, depending on their response she still would have had the option to go further.

During their day at the park those girls probably had tons of fun and some disappointments. I don’t know if the children internalized this incident as racist or not when it happened. Now, they definitely feel singled out for their skin color.

I’m thinking of how Disney World handles customer interactions and I can see that they have a better system. At Disney, you either schedule a meet with a character, and you wait on line, meet the character, get to have photos, etc. and then you move on, or else the characters are on a float but as far as I know, there are no impromptu meetups with characters. Everything is planned and scheduled. It used to be different, because I have photos of family members with characters at Disney World where the characters were roaming around the park, but now it’s not and there is less or no chance of someone feeling like they were overlooked.

@jca2 I think Disney still does it both ways. If you go to a character meal the characters come around to the tables, and sometimes one table might get more attention than another. I would guess they make an effort not show any sort of favoritism.

During the parades the characters are waving at the crowd, I don’t know if they go up and hug kids during a parade though, I don’t remember that. You might be right that it’s a way to avoid this sort of thing if they don’t.

Plus, as you said at Disney you can queue up and wait to meet a character and get your own special time with them talking, taking photos, and getting their signature. Maybe they do that at the Sesame park too.

Look, I’m not too interested in arguing over whether something might have been racism. Yes, it might have been; I am not denying this kind of thing does happen. I don’t know whether it was or not and I don’t think this mom knows either. And I see a problem with assuming that it had to be racism and lashing out on that assumption. Even if her assumption ends up being wrong, the narrative has already been created, the story has already gone viral, there’s no going back at this point.

Maybe the person in the costume was so hot, must be 100 degrees or more in that costume, tired and ready to pass out that they didn’t even notice the child.
I would need more than a snippet in time to draw any conclusions.

@Demosthenes
You never answered the question, and if you don’t want to that’s ok as well:

Does it seem like fantasy, taking America’s history and present state into account, that a single individual might ignore a child specifically because they are black?

I’ll even extend an olive branch and say yes, this totally could’ve been a mistake that was blown out of proportion.
It could have been the end of the line at the parade, and the mascot was basically signally “no more today guys that’s it”.
The person recording should have even turned the camera to her right and left to give us a full picture of the environment.

But I just want to know if you think it’s some wild impossible feat, never before seen in the cosmos…. that a black kid could be ignored by a single individual.

@Demosthenes
Hey man I’m sorry for being so aggressive.
I’m not being mad at you personally.
We’re all kinda wound up lately and i just wanted you to know i came at you kind of aggressively and it wasn’t the best way to do it.

@janbb No, I have no idea on that but I am very empathetic to what it must be like. My point was however not about color. That was my very point.