Mom Shares Video Of Chuck E. Cheese Worker Allegedly Refusing To Interact With Black Child
This poor little girl.
Twitter A mother is accusing a Chuck E. Cheese worker of racism after her child was ignored during a day out at the restaurant chain.
The incident took place on July 30th, 2022 when a mother and her daughter went to a Chuck E. Cheese in Wayne, New Jersey to have some fun.
The mom later shared video footage of the incident that she says show racial discrimination.
The Chuck E. Cheese mascot appears to ignore a Black child’s high five and high-fives other white kids.
The Black child’s mother, who goes by the Twitter handle “@belllahijabi,” posted the video on the social media platform on July 31 where it has already received 3.4 million views.
“PLEASE RETWEET!!” she asks those who watched the video. “On July 30 at Chuck E Cheese in Wayne, NJ, my 2yo was racially discriminated against.”
As the video plays, you can see the man dressed up as the Chuck E. Cheese mascot high-fiving kids up on the stage — all of them white or white-passing — but when the woman’s Black daughter approaches the mascot and gets his attention, he ignores her and continues to interact with the other kids.
“When confronted, he ignored me as well,” she said. “The manager, Angie Valasquez, made excuses for him.”
Many people in the replies criticized the man and openly called him a racist, but others tried to excuse the man’s behavior — including the manager.
The woman claims Valasquez said, “she’s ‘sorry I feel that way’ but he didn’t see her, even after showing her the PROOF in the video.”
“Perhaps they couldn’t see with the head piece on,” one Twitter user tries to defend. “The other children were higher up for them to see.”
But one person who claimed to work at one of the businesses said “I used to work at @ChuckECheese and wear that suit all the time you can see below you not an excuse homeboy not even close.”
Despite this claim, many other claims from people who supposedly worked at Chuck E. Cheese started popping up as well, with at least two reports explaining that this could have been part of a special, paid show for a birthday party.
“I will say from being a former employee this is during a birthday show which is different than the regular show and people pay money to have the private birthday shows,” explained one user.
They continued, saying that the focus from “Chuck” is typically geared toward the family who paid and the kids who will participate in the paid show, although he still should have given the child a high five.
When Daily Voice reached out to Chuck E. Cheese, they gave their statement.
“Chuck E. Cheese is saddened when any family or child has a less than perfect experience,” they said. “We want to thank the family who brought this to our attention at our Wayne, NJ location and for giving the onsite manager an opportunity to apologize and address their concerns in person.”
The damage has already been done, but hopefully, the rise in awareness of the incident will convince the Chuck E. Cheese to rectify the incident in some way.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Since graduating from Rutgers University, he spends most of his free time gaming or playing Quadball. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.