Instagram: @_jodiii_
Sesame Place—the theme park dedicated to the children’s show Sesame Street—has been trashed online after two Black park-goers were seemingly snubbed by a life-sized muppet.
On Sunday, an Instagram user known as @_jodiiii_ posted a video that went viral of two Black girls watching the Sesame Street Party Parade during their trip to the park just outside of Philadelphia. In the clip, two small girls with backpacks wait with open arms for Rosita, an aqua blue character who has been championed as the iconic show’s first bilingual muppet. However, rather than the girls getting claps and high-fives like the white parade attendees before them, it appears as if Rosita waves them off and declines to interact with them. Both girls are left visibly confused and hurt.
“I’m going to keep posting this, because this had me hot,” @_jodiiii_ wrote in a post to accompany the video. “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 hug the little white girl next to us!” (The video posted to social media doesn’t show the subsequent hug.)