Sesame Place is trying to make things right with the family of two young Black girls who received the cold shoulder from one of the costumed characters during a visit, but they are not having it. The Brown family rejected an invitation from executives from SeaWorld Entertainment to revisit the park, saying they’d rather not have their kids to relieve the trauma of their last visit.
If you’ve been following the story, you probably remember that the Philadelphia-area theme park came under serious heat back in July when a mother posted a now-viral video on Instagram of her daughters being snubbed by a park employee dressed as Sesame Street character, Rosita. After high-fiving white children in the area, the character can be seen shaking her head “no” at the two young Black girls reaching out to her. That video prompted other Black families to come forward with stories of their children receiving similar treatment from costumed characters and a class action lawsuit filed against the park. The company responded by working with diversity and inclusion experts to implement a mandatory bias training for all park employees. SeaWorld Entertainment, the parent company, says all employees will have received the training by the end of September 2022.
Brown family attorney, B’Ivory Lamarr, told TMZ that Sesame Place hasn’t told the family how they decided to handle the situation with Rosita in the weeks since the incident– whether the character had been fired or reassigned to another character costume that could “terrorize other children.” Lamarr added that executives from SeaWorld Entertainment met with Rev. Jesse Jackson about ways the company could treat Black guests better. The Browns were also invited to the meeting, but they ended up waiting in the lobby for hours.
The Browns did get a chance to voice their concerns during a follow-up meeting earlier this week with representatives from SeaWorld and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. During that meeting, they rejected the company’s invitation to return to Sesame Place. I mean, can you blame them?
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