Mom Shares Video Of Sesame Place Character Allegedly Refusing To Hug Black Children At Parade
The little girls looked so sad.
Instagram Sesame Place Philadelphia has been facing accusations of racism after a mother posted a video of an interaction between her two daughters and an employee.
The video has gained widespread attention with parents expressing outrage at how the young girls were treated.
In the video, the Sesame Place character is seeing ignoring two Black girls who attempted to interact.
A Sesame Street character named Rosita can be seen walking in the crowd and waving at people, allegedly stopping to hug some children.
In the midst of the crowd, there were two Black girls who were waving back at Rosita. They reached out their hands in an attempt to shake hands or have some physical interaction.
However, the person in Rosita's costume just ignored their advances and walked past them. Upon seeing that, the mother stopped recording further.
She then posted the video on social and expressed her anger by explaining what happened at the park in the caption of the video.
She wrote, “THIS DISGUSTING person blatantly told our kids NO then proceeded to hug the little white girl next to us.”
The mother explains that when she went to complain about the incident, an employee could not direct her to a supervisor.
Sesame Place apologized after the video went viral.
After hearing about such an incident, Sesame Place responded back with an apology on their Instagram page.
In their written statement, they claimed that Rosita ignoring the two girls was not intentional. The employee was rather trying to not interact with anyone.
Multiple people were asking Rosita to take a picture with their kids which is not allowed so the employee ignored the kids. Sesame Place even went further to invite the family back to the theme park.
The statement read, “We spoke to the family and extended our apologies and invited them back for a special meet-and-greet opportunity with our characters.”
The mother rejected Sesame Place's apology.
Posting a now-deleted Instagram story, the mom claimed her daughters never asked to take a photo and believes no other family did either.
She wrote, “I wholeheartedly feel as though that statement was released to save face.”
The mother further called the apology disrespectful while thinking of it as an insult and explained her stance.
“The character could’ve just waved to everyone or just kept walking but to blatantly look at my kids and say no, I’m not [accepting] that,” she wrote.
“Don’t try to tell me he can’t see lower levels. He looked at them and said no!! So embarrassing and hurtful.”
Sanika Nalgirkar is a News & Entertainment Writer based in Seattle. She has a master's degree in Creative Writing. See more of her writing on her website.