Sesame Place Philadelphia apologizes after mother posts video of daughters’
After the continuing backlash following an initial statement, the family venue now says it knows that what happened is not OK and is committed to making things right.
In a statement Monday night, the theme park said it will be conducting training for employees so “they better understand, recognize and deliver an inclusive, equitable and entertaining experience to our guests.”
The statement was in response to a video a mother posted online showing her two Black daughters reaching their hands out to the Sesame Street character “Rosita” during a parade at the park in Langhorne, Bucks County on Saturday.
The video shows the character giving high-fives to others paradegoers as she nears the two kids.
Jodi Brown and her attorney told CNN on Tuesday that the Sesame Place character, Rosita, was intentionally racist toward her family.
The mother alleges the character motioned “no” and ignored her daughter and niece while interacting with other children.
“Right after the character passed them, there was another little girl next to them who was of a different race and [Rosita] hugged her,” Brown said.
She said the character embraced the other child with two arms. “At that time I had already stopped recording the video. … I was upset so I stopped the video because I was like ‘what just happened?'”
“The fact that this even happened, the fact that this is going to be a core memory for them when it comes to Sesame Place is actually disgusting and unbelievable,” added Brown.
In its original statement on Sunday, Sesame Place said in part, “The performer portraying the Rosita character has confirmed that the ‘no’ hand gesture seen several times in the video was not directed to any specific person…rather it was a response to multiple requests from someone in the crowd who asked Rosita to hold their child for a photo which is not permitted.”
Sesame Place said, “The costumes the performers wear sometimes make it difficult to see at lower levels and sometimes our performers miss hug requests from guests.”
In the initial statement, Sesame Place said the performer “did not intentionally ignore the girls” and was “devastated about the misunderstanding.”
“We apologize to these guests for not delivering the experience they expected and we commit to do our best to earn their and all guests’ visit and support,” the initial statement read.
But amid the fallout, several new videos have surfaced that appear to show similar incidents.
The park has not responded to those videos but says it has reached out to the family from last weekend’s video and invited them for a special meet-and-greet opportunity with the park characters.
On Monday night, Sesame Place issued a follow-up to the initial statement:
“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…
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