Sesame Place Again Apologizes To Snubbed Black Family, Pledges Change

LANGHORNE, PA — Sesame Place has apologized a second time to a Black family who said a character ignored their two Black daughters during a weekend parade, and the theme park vowed to implement mandatory diversity training.

As Doylestown Patch previously reported, Pennsylvania mother Jodi Brown called out the Langhorne theme park on Instagram earlier this week in a video posted to her account. The nine-second video appeared to show two 6-year-old Black girls watching a parade while Sesame Street character Rosita high-fived other attendees. When the girls reached out to Rosita as she approached, the character wagged her finger and shook her head as she passed the children.

"THIS DISGUSTING person blatantly told our kids NO then proceeded to hug the little white girl next to us!" Brown wrote in the Instagram post. In the post, she also said she asked to speak to a supervisor, but the staff couldn't tell her who was in charge.

Sesame Place responded to the backlash in a statement posted to Instagram on Monday, saying the performer portraying the Rosita character confirmed the "no" hand gesture wasn't directed at any specific person. It was, the park said, in response to requests from someone in the crowd who asked Rosita to hold their child for a photo, which is not allowed.

"The Rosita performer did not intentionally ignore the girls and is devastated about the misunderstanding," the park said Monday

The family later retained B'Ivory LaMarr of B'Ivory LaMarr Trial Lawyers, who said the girls were "intentionally mistreated."

On Thursday night, the park said apologized again to the family, and said they were in contact with Brown and LaMarr, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. They planned to meet to apologize in person, and to hear about the family’s experience and work toward improving the park. Among the changes: the park plans to train all workers on how to “deliver an inclusive, equitable and entertaining experience."

“We sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize to the Brown family for what they experienced,” Sesame Place said in the statement, according to the newspaper. “To be very clear, what the two young girls experienced, what the family experienced, is unacceptable. It happened in our park, with our team, and we own that. It is our responsibility to make this better for the children and the family and to be better for all families.”