HARTFORD, Conn — Social media is buzzing after a mother posted a video of her kids at the sesame street parade at Sesame Place in Philadelphia, where she claimed they experienced blatant racism.
The mom said on her Instagram that Rosita's character intentionally snubbed her girls, who were eagerly waiting to meet her during the parade, calling the actions "disgusting."
"THIS DISGUSTING person blatantly told our kids NO then proceeded to hug the little white girl next to us! Then when I went to complain about it, they looking at me like I'm crazy," the mom, @__jodii__ said in her post. "I asked the lady who the character was and I wanted to see a supervisor and she told me SHE DIDNT KNOW !!"
The post was viewed more than 600,000 times on Instagram.
As a black mother of two, Kamora Herrington said seeing videos like this pop up across social media makes emotions high.
"As a child of the 70s who knows how incredibly important Sesame Street is, I'm kind of heartbroken," said Herrington. "Knowing that parents thought they would give their children the children's television workshop experience and instead they got to experience Proud Boys, racism, and rejection."
However, Herrington said she wasn't shocked.
While the mother who posted this video on social media believes this is a display of racism Sesame Place released a statement on its social media platforms on Sunday and explained that the character's actions were not directed at the young girls.
"The costumes our performers wear sometimes make it difficult to see at lower levels, and sometimes our performers miss hug requests from guests," the statement said.
After the statement was released, social went into another uproar, saying the statement was an insult to injury and wasn't good enough.
Then on Monday, Sesame Place released a second statement with an apology to the family.
"We sincerely apologize to the family for their experience in our park on Saturday; we know that it's not ok," the company said. "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."
However, Dr. Javeed Sukhera, Chief of Psychiatry at Hartford Hospital, said That the negative impact is already done in situations like this.
"When young people, particularly young black kids, receive messages from society that doesn't affirm who they are and are made to feel smaller or ignored or less than, that accumulates as a form of chronic toxic stress," said Dr. Sukhera. "Witnessing it is a form of vicarious trauma, which is why it's so important for us to name this kind of racism, to name the racial trauma that results from it, and focus on changing systems and structures while we support healing."
And until that happens, Herrington said she'll be on high alert to protect her children.
"By the way, they're acting at Sesame Place, privileged children are loved at Sesame Place, but my kids aren't," said Herrington.
Herrington said as more videos continue to surface of unfair treatment at Sesame Palace, it's a harsh reality that black voices are often silenced and unheard.
"When you see video after video, after video, after video, we need to understand that there is a lot of racism in the United States of America and that people love to display it and use it and that people have no problem sharing their racism, their homophobia, their isms with children," passionately explained Herrington.
Raquel Harrington is the race and culture reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at rharrington@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
---
Have a story idea or something on your mind you want to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at newstips@fox61.com
----
HERE ARE MORE WAYS TO GET FOX61 NEWS
Download the FOX61 News APP
iTunes: Click here to download
Google Play: Click here to download
Stream Live on ROKU: Add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching FOX61.
Steam Live on FIRE TV: Search ‘FOX61’ and click ‘Get’ to download.