Many More Families Join in to Sue Sesame Place

• Author: Mary Singleton
• Posted: 2024-09-20

As the summer heat beat down on a public parade in July, hundreds of families stood on a New York City street to watch the Sesame Place parade go through the city. After the parade ended, videos started to surface on social media which showed that one of the Sesame Place mascots walk away from two small black girls without acknowledging them. Despite the fact that even more videos surfaced showing the same mascot spending ample time with other black children, the story was all about Sesame Place's racism in ignoring a black children. It was tweeted about by high-profile politicians. It made the 24-7 rounds on America's corporate media. It was the number-one story in America, bigger than inflation and the situation in Ukraine. People were appalled that a racist mascot could ignore a little girl like that, and thus it was assumed that it had to be due to the girl's skin color. A week later, lawyers convinced a black family in Baltimore to sue, due to claims of experiencing the same discrimination, and now 89 families have joined in a class action lawsuit against Sesame Place.

A lot of people reading this news might find it too ridiculous to take seriously. After all, the other videos have also surfaced and have made the rounds, and the common consensus among the public is now that one video was just taken out of context. However, now that dozens of other families have decided to join in the lawsuit, the Sesame Place drama has once again taken center stage, and there are reportedly 125 children, primarily black children, whose parents claim were neglected by the company.

It was odd how this all started. The original video came out of a New York City parade; and just as the drama was dying down around that, a family in Baltimore filed a discrimination lawsuit against the company. As lawyers started to make the rounds, 88 other families joined the lawsuit. Now it's a very serious suit that's been filed, and damages of over $50 are being sought.

Right after the initial news broke, Sesame Place did what most American companies do: They apologized profusely and swore to force all of their employees into "diversity and inclusion" courses, just like Starbucks, Walmart, and so many before them. However, the lawyers had already decided that this was too glaring an example of discrimination not to file a lawsuit, and so the usual mea culpa act did not work.

A New Precedent Being Set

Critics claim that this lawsuit is setting such a dangerous precedent that if a judge doesn't dismiss it with extreme prejudice, every American company can expect at some point to face a similar suit. Why are critics claiming it's so dangerous? Because of the fact, they claim, that the contrary evidence is available in abundance, with dozens of videos and thousands of photos illustrating that Sesame Place's mascots regularly interact with black children. As one person wrote on Twitter, "Does this mean that a mascot, burning to death in his suit, has to stop for every single black child or risk getting in trouble?" It's a legitimate question to ask. Somewhere out there, a judge claimed that this lawsuit had enough merit to be filed.

The real issue here isn't the hypothetical court proceedings. In all likelihood, Sesame Street has more than enough evidence to show that it does not discriminate against children based on their race. They would likely win the lawsuit very easily. But that is not how these corporations operate. They do not care about the money; they care about their image. So while they might be found to be innocent in a court of law, the court of public opinion is always going to hold them accountable and treat them as guilty. That bell has been rung. So now that it's in court, the best thing for a corporation like Sesame Place is to just settle so that the story goes away. If they win, they're seen as racists, and as bullies, and it hurts their image even more.

What's so incredibly dangerous here is that there are judges allowing these sorts of frivolous suits to go through to trial, according to critics and some legal experts. They believe this is just an invitation for more and more people to start suing corporations over racial bias, especially in a current American culture where "racism" is the worst possible crime one can commit.