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A Puppet's Rebuff Is Appraised: Sesame Place May Soon Owe $25 Million for Racism

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Have you ever been rejected? If so, my condolences concerning your $20+ million worth of pain. According to a lawsuit, that could be the amount of wrong done to you and similarly-snubbed others.

Earlier this month at Pennsylvania’s Sesame Place theme park, two young cousins tried to high-five a costumed character. The parading life-sized puppet signaled “no” and sashayed away.

A video went viral:

The episode caused quite the stir, even on this very site. RedState’s Bonchie announced, “I regret to inform you that weird green-looking mascots named Rosita from Sesame Street are now the face of racism in America.” Our colleague Jeff Charles charged, “Sesame Street is a white supremacist production and should be shut down immediately.”

Bonchie bestowed context for the calamitous clip:

A statement from Sesame Street claims the mascot didn’t see the two black children. … According to people on the scene, Rosita wasn’t waving off the first white woman or the two black children. Rather, they were motioning repeatedly to a person behind the crowd who was trying to get the mascot to hold a baby. That would make sense given safety concerns.

Nonetheless, racism was alleged.

Sesame Workshop worked up a curious response. Following initial insistence of a misunderstanding, it waved the white flag of repentant remarks:

We sincerely apologize to the family for their experience in our park on Saturday; we know that it’s not okay. We are taking actions to do better. We are committed to making this right.

The company pledged to put its workers through “bias training.”

On June 19th, Jeff Charles observed that the girls’ family had retained an attorney. Jeff joked that Sesame Place “should have to donate at least $2 million to Black Lives Matter each year for a decade.”

It appears a new family is trying to outdo his $20 million prescription — by five million dollars.

From The Associated Press:

A Baltimore family is suing a Sesame Street-themed amusement park for $25 million over claims of racial discrimination, alleging multiple costumed characters ignored a 5-year-old Black girl during a meet-and-greet event last month.

The lawsuit comes in the wake of a video, shared widely on social media, showing two other Black girls apparently being snubbed…

The suit — filed in federal court against Sesame Place owner SeaWorld Parks — calls to “pervasive and appalling race discrimination.”

The lawsuit alleges four employees dressed as Sesame Street characters ignored Quinton Burns, his daughter Kennedi Burns and other Black guests during the meet-and-greet on June 18. The lawsuit says “SeaWorld’s performers readily engaged with numerous similarly situated white customers.”

During a press conference held Wednesday, one of the family’s attorneys, Malcolm Ruff, called for transparency from SeaWorld and for the company to compensate the Burns family. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The suit is of the class action kind; multiple families have come forward with similar claims.

As for Jodi Brown — mother to one of the girls in the initial video — she’s rejected Sesame Place’s public apology.

And on Wednesday, the Daily Mail noted Congress’s involvement:

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus reportedly asked for a meeting with leadership at a Sesame Street theme park after video showing a costumed character waving off two six-year-old black girls during a parade went viral.

Jodi has called for the pernicious employee in the Rosita suit to be sacked.

It’s a stunning amount of blowback from a headshake and a forefinger’s wag. But these are the days of vital visibility, when microaggressions amount to “death by a thousand cuts.” Sesame Place had better construct their suits with more eye-holes — so everyone can sufficiently feel seen.

In the meantime, maybe $25 million will serve as a salve for those who’ve been hurt.

-ALEX

See more content from me:

The Asian Murder Hornet Gets Robbed of Its Racist Identity

The Bushes’ Alma Mater Teaches Kindergarteners ‘Whites Make It Harder for Black People’

More Than 50 Members of Congress Demand Biden Take a Cognitive Test, but What if He Fails?

Find all my RedState work here.

Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below.

'The View' Bends the Knee, Formally Apologizes to TPUSA for 'Nazi' Smear

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The far-left daytime talk show “The View” may have gained another co-host over the last few days after former Mike Pence staffer Alyssa Farrah completed her grift for the job. But the show almost gained a lawsuit as well.

The backstory involves a series of delusional rants made by Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar on Monday regarding the recent TPUSA summit in Florida. In an attempt to trash Gov. Ron DeSantis, the two hosts claimed that TPUSA had let “nazis” into their conference and tried to draw a line between them and the Florida governor.

That was, of course, completely false, and was known to be false at the time. In fact, RedState’s own Brandon Morse was on the ground and filmed himself mocking the “nazis.” There was no support for them there, and TPUSA had no connection to the group.

Following a commercial break on Monday’s show, “The View” had one of its hosts, Sarah Haines, read two corrections on the matter. Still, Goldberg, never being the brightest bulb in the drawer, persisted in accusing TPUSA of “welcoming” nazis. That led to a cease and desist order being issued on Tuesday, and it seems “The View” finally got the message.

On Wednesday, Haines once again was tasked with bending the knee, this time to deliver a formal and direct apology for the show’s behavior.

Never has a more insincere apology been given. You know that Goldberg is just off camera rolling her eyes. Heck, given she was the one who made the defamatory statements, why not make her read the apology? The answer is because she’s not sorry and neither are the rest of the people at the table. This was a move forced on the hosts by the network’s lawyers, most of whom were probably freaking out at the prospect of a major lawsuit.

That lack of care is illustrated by the fact that Farrah immediately quips that “they still invited Matt Gaetz, though, I would just like to note.” So is Gaetz a “nazi” now? That seems like a rather wild charge to make after just being forced to make an on-air apology. These loons couldn’t go even a single second without essentially doubling down on their smears. There’s no fear there, and there won’t be until they pay a monetary price.

I guess the question now is whether TPUSA should still look at filing a lawsuit. No doubt, there’s a groundswell of support to do so online, and I’d personally love to see it. “The View” did formally apologize in response to a cease and desist request, though, so that probably puts this episode to bed. Regardless, if I were TPUSA, I’d be watching these hosts like a hawk from here on out, and I wouldn’t even bother with a cease and desist letter the next go around.