Sesame Place apologizes after character appears to ignore Black girls in viral video
Last edited Tue Jul 19, 2022, 11:27 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: CNN
(CNN)Sesame Place, a "Sesame Street" themed amusement park in Philadelphia, is apologizing after a video shows a costumed character appearing to ignore two Black children during a parade on Saturday. n the nine-second video shared by the girls' mother on Instagram, her daughters are seen reaching out for a hug from the character, Rosita. In the video, Rosita seemingly shakes her head no and keeps walking by. In the caption of the video, the mother called the incident "disgusting." "I will never step foot in @sesameplace ever again !" The mother who goes by Jodiii on Instagram said. "And please feel free to repost this. Actually run me my money back."
Sesame Place Philadelphia initially released a statement on Monday saying: "Our brand, our park and our employees stand for inclusivity and equality in all forms. That is what Sesame Place is about and we do not tolerate any behaviors in our parks that are contrary to that commitment. We also are, and have always been, committed to making sure every family and every child has the best possible experience at our parks and we are incredibly disappointed when that does not happen."
After the video began to gain traction on social media, the theme park released a follow-up statement Monday night saying: We sincerely apologize to the family for their experience in our park on Saturday; we know that it's not ok. We are taking actions to do better. We are committed to making this right. We will conduct training for our employees so they better understand, recognize and deliver an inclusive, equitable and entertaining experience to our guests."
"For over 40 years Sesame Place has worked to uphold the values of respect, inclusion and belonging. We are committed to doing a better job making children and families feel special, seen and included when they come to our parks." NN has reached out to the girls' mother for comment.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/us/sesame-place-apology-rosita-black-girls-backlash-reaj/index.html
As a note about lazy reporting, this theme park is NOT in the city of Philadelphia but is in a town and county just to the northeast of Philly - Langhorne, PA in Bucks County. Brief look up of the story authors and it's doubtful any of them were even born when the show first aired.
This has been running on the local news here in Philly. The irony of this incident is that the whole concept of "Sesame Street" was as a counter to children's programming that completely ignored the diverse children living in urban communities and instead focused on suburban and small town households and experiences - literally for the 20 years leading up to the show's debut in 1969.
ETA -
Here is a link to the Instagram video - https://www.instagram.com/p/CgGAHtyFoHg/
Here is one Youtube of it that I found (with some guy commenting) -
= new reply since forum marked as read
is supposed to be a 5 year old bilingual Mexican American girl. I had posted an excerpt of the story behind the character here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2945014
By Alejandra Salazar Sep 8, 2020
If you want to get to Sesame Street, just ask Rosita. The bright, fuzzy turquoise muppet made history as the show’s first full-time bilingual muppet in 1991 and has been a regular member of the Sesame Street cast ever since.
Rosita —whose full name is Rosita, la Monstrua de las Cuevas— originally hails from the caverns of Mexico. The now 5-year-old arrived on Sesame Street on the show’s 23rd season. Since then, she’s been involved in different storylines, including teaching the Spanish Word of the Day, appearing in outreach for military families, and most recently encouraging kids and their parents to participate in the 2020 census.
The character is the brainchild of muppeteer Carmen Osbahr, who moved from Mexico to New York City’s Kaufman Studios to create and play Rosita. Osbahr still brings the muppet to life to this day. In this installment of our How I Made It series, Osbahr and Rosita discuss their journeys to Sesame Street and revisit their greatest adventures after almost 30 seasons on the friendliest block on television.
(snip)
https://www.latinousa.org/2020/09/08/rosita/
The problem is not the character or even the costume, but the ugly person wearing it.
How nice of you to join us after signing up in 2013!
It's EXACTLY like what happened when that nut shot up those people in Highland Park and the media kept saying the shooting was "in Chicago" (and kept repeating that over and over too until finally corrected).
(sorry... chaps my hide
)when they found out that he had apparently driven up to Madison and then came back down and then looked up where he was from and where his parents lived.
In this case, the venue is about 25 miles from Philly (my nieces and nephews have been there when they were little).
I used to go up to the far NE when the (original) Franklin Mills Mall and CarreFour first opened in the '80s and way before that, to right across the line in Trevose when the "Lincoln Drive-in" was still around (back in the '60s/'70s).'
I live a few blocks from the city line myself (Montgomery County) but I don't call that "Philadelphia". 
I remember the day that opened. It was a racetrack - Liberty Bell - before that. I was in that mall constantly. My parents did food shopping and other shopping every other week at CarreFour. Their workers were on roller skates and that was my idea of a dream job. 
We are in the 'burbs now, close to Philly, and my suburban friends have learned not to say they are "from Philly" because I'll put them in their place. 
I went into Carrefour once to see the roller skaters. 
I was actually up there more because there used to be a big computer store there (may have been a Computer Warehouse) and I bought a new 13" VGA monitor and 8-bit VGA card there for my Tandy 1000TL (still have the original computer up on a shelf in a closet 
).
Could NOT remember the damn name of it. I practically LIVED in there!!!!!!
I would roll up to Township Line Rd. and then use that (because it changed names to Cottman Ave) to cut over to NE Philly, coming out onto the Roosevelt Blvd and head on up that on the way to that mall.
because there was a John Wanamaker's there (and I had one of their store cards - the other one I went to used to be in Jenkintown, and when I worked downtown, would go to their main store, now a Macy's)!
I was also always fascinated how that Roosevelt Mall would have a carnival with a big ferris wheel in the parking lot in the summer! I was like hey! Why don't we have that?????
I grew up getting hauled to the Sears on the Blvd - the "Gateway to the Great Northeast". I still have a VCR recording of the implosion of that place. We were in there ALL the time. Also used to go the old Gaudio's too on the Blvd.
IIRC, the original Franklin Mills mall had an Ann Klein outlet in there (something that my mom wanted to go to ). And yeah, I refuse to call it "Philadelphia Mills".
I bought a dining room set there almost 30 years ago and still have it. My mom was a die-hard Wanamakers shopper because they were one of the few if not the only department store back in the '50s that let women have a charge card in their own name and she did!
We would go to the Wanamakers in Jenkintown (later became a Hechingers and is now a Raymour and Flanagan with a Trader Joe's at the very end of the property), and then we also went to the Strawbridge's in Jenkintown. We were up and down Old York Road.
And I do remember the landmarks like that Nabisco bakery that I know they fought and fought to keep open but eventually had to close.
When I used to live in a hi-rise here, I could actually see that Sears clock tower from my balcony and that was almost 7 miles away. It was a great landmark.
I think the last time I've been up that way was going to the PA Turnpike on a work trip (I think it was during some period when 95 was going through construction and I took the "back way" ).
I would take Washington Lane to Church Rd to Rockledge. At the dead end turn right to Oxford/Rhawn then over to Roosevelt. I had business at PNE. I moved to lower Holmesburg when I got married which made it a shorter drive.
I didn't like TL/Cottman because TL would sometimes backup being 1 lane each way and not much shoulder. Cottman had a traffic light on every 3rd corner and getting by Roosevelt Mall could be a zoo.
We loved CarreFour. 
Only got there a couple times then it closed. We moved soon after to North Jersey. (Oh, you live in North Jersey... What exit?)
Now we live in South Jersey. 
Lots of TV reporters sometimes get city neighborhood names wrong.
BTW do you have a favorite local TV news reporter? My favorite is Ukee Washington. IMO he is so composed, respectful and all around likeable. Plus, he's Denzel's second cousin. 
Yeah it was a meandering 1-lane each way street. But it was a direct route! Hell, I grew up with parents who would go out Chew Ave (that became Olney) and would roll down that until you got to Tabor and then to Adams Ave. to get to the Roosevelt Blvd. That was how we got to Sears. Of course that was because my parents were "pre-Schuylkill Expressway/Roosevelt Blvd Extension" and going out Olney was one good way to cut over to the NE (along with Cheltenham Ave).
And yeah I like Ukee. They recently had a celebration for him - found it here - 35 years at channel 3 (as of last year).
I really haven't watched local news anymore (am more a radio listener) so I have no idea who half those anchors are. I do know Jim Gardner who literally just retired this past January after 46 years as a channel 6 anchor! And Hurricane Schwartz just retired this past April I think. As a weather hobbyist, that was a loss! I did actually meet him when I was having a b-day party up at the Willow Grove Mall at the Cheesecake Factory and he and his wife were there.
but at least back then you could SEE your destination!!! SEARS!!
I think Whitaker Ave came out around there too. IIRC that is how we got to the "basement" level entrance of Sears where there was a parking lot there and they had all the swing sets and above-ground pools displayed. That entrance took you into the hardware department where there were all the shelves and shelves of nails and screws and bolts and lighting fixtures, plus storm-door displays that me and my sisters would play with (the doors were configured so they were hinged to a central post and you could flap them around the post).
but I just remember the hardware department and then we would go up the escalator to the main level and would play under the big circular clothes racks.
(yes I'm regressing )
The round racks, the 3 pane mirrors in the dressing room, the only places to sit were shoes and furniture. 
During college I worked at Wanamakers in Jenkintown. I met my wife there. My evenings carrying stock there were mostly a store wide with pretty girls. 
But my parents were engaged at Willow Grove Park back in the late '50s and had a pic in front of one of those!
(OMG it'll be 40 years since his skydiving accident!
)I grew up Jim Gardner, Dave Roberts, Gary Papa (R.I.P.), Lisa Thomas Laurie, Rob Jennings, Rick Williams, Don Pollock, etc. My parents watched 6ABC news religiously in the morning and at dinner. The theme song iconic. Jim Gardener is my fav. As a kid, I had a crush on Dave Roberts lol. He helped inspire my weather enthusiasm.
I do like Ukee Washington. 
I remember all those folks. I remember those funny spots with Don Pollock.
So who's your current news crush? I won't tell.
I think it's hard to see the little ones when they're small and the performers can only see out of the costume's "mouth." It's much easier to see standing adults or a child that is lifted up by an adult. I find it hard to believe that the performers deliberately ignored the little girls.
I wasn't aware of the "no contact" rule that has been in effect, but it makes sense for the Covid-times we're in now. I think the reporter is making this into a racial thing, but it really isn't. The Sesame Place should have a portable step-ladder platform where the kids could get up higher and they'd be able to greet the characters at eye-level. Then the parents would be able to take their kids' picture and everyone goes home happy.
the performer waves a hand over the 2 little girls heads and then moves on so they were "seen". With those neon backpacks, I don't think they could have been missed - especially since they appeared to have been moved further from the line of people and were almost solitary.
Here are some stills from the video -
Here you can see a small arm of a child who reaches out and gets a hand-pat (the arm is circled in red) -
Here you can see an adult get a "high five" -
Here you see the performer waving a "no" someone out of camera view not near those little girls -
And after doing that, here is where the performer waves a hand over the heads of the girls in a dismissive fashion as if to shoo them away -
was that performer of this character ( "Rosita" ) was literally "touching" everyone else along that line of people EXCEPT them. The stills I posted show physical contact. And because of that, the little girls were reaching out to be able to do the same.
How can you explain that other children and adults get to "touch" but you can't? The stills clearly show the performer engaging others who "reached out" to touch the costumed hand of the character and the character returned the touch.
This particular character is supposed to be a bilingual Mexican American child.
By Alejandra Salazar Sep 8, 2020
If you want to get to Sesame Street, just ask Rosita. The bright, fuzzy turquoise muppet made history as the show’s first full-time bilingual muppet in 1991 and has been a regular member of the Sesame Street cast ever since.
Rosita —whose full name is Rosita, la Monstrua de las Cuevas— originally hails from the caverns of Mexico. The now 5-year-old arrived on Sesame Street on the show’s 23rd season. Since then, she’s been involved in different storylines, including teaching the Spanish Word of the Day, appearing in outreach for military families, and most recently encouraging kids and their parents to participate in the 2020 census.
The character is the brainchild of muppeteer Carmen Osbahr, who moved from Mexico to New York City’s Kaufman Studios to create and play Rosita. Osbahr still brings the muppet to life to this day. In this installment of our How I Made It series, Osbahr and Rosita discuss their journeys to Sesame Street and revisit their greatest adventures after almost 30 seasons on the friendliest block on television.
(snip)
https://www.latinousa.org/2020/09/08/rosita/
The family of the girls has hired a lawyer. This place can easily become toast. Guaranteed word of mouth from the black community could sink them although like similar incidents such as this, often some type of "settlement" tends to happen because of what is already bad press - not just for the parks, but for the namesake show associated with the parks, whose original purpose was to bring "inclusion" of urban children of all races, genders, ethnicities, religions, and abilities, to a "safe place" where their cultures are not only "seen" but appreciated and serve as a teaching tool -
The family's lawyer says they "will not hasten to exercise every remedy under the law to hold this theme park accountable."
By Nick Romano July 19, 2022 at 09:40 AM EDT
The family at the center of the now-viral Sesame Place video has hired a lawyer after both the Philadelphia amusement park and Sesame Workshop issued statements on the matter.
B'Ivory LaMarr of the B'Ivory LaMarr Trial Lawyers firm confirmed in a statement that he has taken on the family of the two African-American girls "who were intentionally mistreated by a Sesame Place employee during a parade."
Leslie Mac, a comms director at The Frontline, and the mother, who goes by Jeezy on Instagram, both posted video of the two kids in question waiting for a Rosita actor to walk by them during a parade at Sesame Place on Saturday. According to the mother, the Rosita actor refused the kids when they went in for hugs and "then proceeded to hug the little white girl" next to them.
"We are appalled, both, by the actions of the performer and the lack of accountability and audacity of the Sesame Place theme park to defend such egregious actions," LaMarr said. "We will not hasten to exercise every remedy under the law to hold this theme park accountable for what we construe as nothing short of intentional mistreatment to their minority patrons."
(snip)
https://ew.com/tv/viral-sesame-place-rosita-video-family-hires-lawyer/
