A York father is among a growing number of parents who believe costumed characters at Sesame Place have been snubbing Black children.
Nathan Fleming posted a video of his 5-year-old daughter, Olivia, raising her arm for a high-five from a character in a parade. Fleming contends the character high-fived an Asian child next to her and brushed his daughter off. His video had more than 29,000 views by Thursday afternoon.
“Na we ain’t letting @sesameplace off the hook that easy!!” he wrote in the Instagram post Monday. “Your characters have something against black kids period!!”
This comes in the wake of a video recorded at Sesame Place on Saturday that shows an interaction between a character and two Black girls. That video circulated across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and set off a storm on social media as other parents shared videos of similar experiences at the park.
Park officials issued an apology on Instagram, calling it a misunderstanding.
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“Our brand, our park, and our employees stand for inclusivity and equality in all forms,” the statement from Sesame Place read on Instagram. “We do not tolerate any behavior in our parks that is contrary to that commitment.
“Regarding the incident yesterday. 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. The Rosita performer did not intentionally ignore the girls and is devastated about the misunderstanding.”
The park denied that racism had anything to do with the costumed employee’s actions and invited the family back for a special meet-and-greet with the characters.
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The theme park posted another official statement on Monday.
“We sincerely apologize to the family for their experience in our park on Saturday; we know that it’s not ok. We are taking action to do better,” said Sesame Place in the official statement. “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.”
Fleming and his fiancée took his daughter to Sesame Place on July 4 on a last-minute trip to Philadelphia.
“It was just something that was random,” said Fleming. “We woke up that morning and we just decided to just drive out to Philadelphia.”
In the eight-second video, Fleming’s daughter is seen reaching her hand out as a Muppet character walks up to her.
Fleming described the encounter on Instagram: “After being ignored by several characters I finally did the noble dad thing and got ones attention and pointed at my daughter, the character walked towards my daughter who was expecting a high five, just for him to turn and blow her off once he seen an Asian kid with his hand out and gave him the high five instead… then brushes my daughters hand off.”
Fleming was recording the interaction because his daughter is a fan of the Youtube channel Ryan’s World and wanted to make a video of her spending the day at the theme park.
“She was actually pretty excited prior to that,” Fleming said.
While still at the parade, Fleming posted the interaction on his Facebook and Instagram stories. A couple of people told him that the character brushed his daughter off but he didn’t notice the messages at the time.
A week later, Jodi Brown, the mother of the two Black girls who were allegedly snubbed by the Rosita character, posted her video.
“I’m going to keep posting this because this had me hot,” Brown said in the caption. “We were on our way out of Sesame Place and the kids wanted to stop to see the characters. THIS DISGUSTING person blatantly told our kids NO then proceeded to the little white girl beside us!”
Brown denied that anyone from the park had contacted her and that she had requested to speak with a representative. She also said she asked to speak to a park official on Saturday after the incident but was ignored.
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“Somebody tagged me to the video and said, “That happened to your daughter,'” Fleming said. “So I went back and watched my video and that’s when I realized this clearly was something.”
“When it happened I didn’t really catch it in the moment,” he said. “I was motivated to help her get a high-five because that was all she wanted.”
Fleming said he never expected to run into such an issue.
“My kids really don’t know that dynamic of them being a Black kid, he’s a white kid. It’s different for them,” Fleming said.
Since the incident, Fleming said, his daughter no longer wants to go to places where characters walk around and greet visitors. She won’t watch shows with characters like Sesame Street. The family even returned special tickets because they don’t want to come back to the park.
“Stuff like this is a big deal for kids,” Fleming said. “The fact that she even has to deal with it. It’s one thing dealing with someone she can see but someone that’s in a costume, she doesn’t know why they are treating a child like that.”
Katia Parks covers public safety issues for the York Daily Record. Please feel free to reach her atKParks@ydr.com. Follow her on Facebook (@Katia Parks), Twitter (@parksphoto), and Instagram (@katia.l.parks).
