Wow, it’s pretty racist for Sesame Street to have been on TV five decades and not had any black Muppets, even after introducing a Latina muppet, a homeless Muppet, and a Muppet with an incarcerated parent. NBC is reporting that Sesame Street is introducing a black father and son to “help children understand racial literacy.”
Sesame Street has two new Muppets, a Black father and son, in an effort to help children understand racial literacy.
In the promo, Elmo asks why Wes’s skin is brown. His dad Elijah explains how “the color of our skin is an important part of who we are.” https://t.co/f7T1z9NsCU
— NBCBLK (@NBCBLK) March 25, 2021
They still have human characters on Sesame Street, right? (We haven’t watched in a while.) It is pretty crazy that Elmo has been on since 1980 and has never seen brown skin before.
I understand the ways in which MLK’s famous quote about looking to “a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” has been cynically deployed to avoid difficult racial reckoning. But still, this feels like serious regress: pic.twitter.com/yzf1lQ1P1M
— Thomas Chatterton Williams ? ? (@thomaschattwill) March 25, 2021
But most of all it’s the targeted indoctrination of the very young that really doesn’t sit well with me.
— Thomas Chatterton Williams ? ? (@thomaschattwill) March 25, 2021
Targeted indoctrination of the very young is the new hotness — social justice for toddlers is a growth industry.
Do they discuss why Elmo is bright red? Because that seems like the more obvious question.
— Jed "Sixteen Tons" Trott (@Jed_Trott) March 25, 2021
Does Elijah explain *why* it's important? Very curious to know.
— ITC_Spy (@ITC_SPY) March 25, 2021
Remember when Sesame Street was about teaching kids to read? Good thing we don’t need that anymore.
— Cindy Cellarteen (@cindycellarteen) March 25, 2021
Racial literacy > literacy.
Jeezus. I hate this.
— ABKinSTL (@ABKinSTL) March 25, 2021
Sesame Street characters are all different colours anyway – having a character ask another why he is a particular colour is in itself 'othering'.
— madam speaker (@pott_t) March 25, 2021
Agreed. There's every color Muppet, but for some reason, it's only brown that they're talking about. Brown is different. Brown is not normal, because we're talking about how important it is.
Really sad to see Sesame Street going down this path.
— Ryan Geoffrey Esq. (@PoorerEveryDay) March 25, 2021
The pointlessness of making racialized Muppets when they already come in a spectacular variety of colours shapes and sizes… The point was already made in the 70s…
— OldSchoolGamerP (@OldSchoolGamerP) March 25, 2021
He's lived for decades with characters who are green, yellow, purple, and blue, and he himself is red…why would Elmo suddenly be confused by brown skin?
Such a scenario is the product of an racial-essentialist mindset.
— Harris Coverley (@ha_coverley) March 25, 2021
"It was our sole, defining characteristic during the Wokepocalypse, Elmo"
— DallasHarmon (@DallasHarmon) March 25, 2021
I guess Elmo forgot about all that time he spent hanging out with Gordon?
— Taylor White (@taylurk) March 25, 2021
That’s what we were wondering. He never thought to ask?
I'm not sure why, or even where we are headed but I'm instinctively fearful and saddened.
— Jack Solloway (@JTornbury) March 25, 2021
"difficult racial reckoning" sounds kind of ominous
— poor ned (@NedPoor) March 25, 2021
Judging by content of character, not color of skin, is a start point for the individual and an endpoint for society. Society will never reach the goal unless we start living that rule today, right now, in our daily lives. This is what the woke revisionists can’t see.
— Gary Gautier (@GaryGautier1) March 25, 2021
Isn't this what they call "race essentialism?"
— Jacob Bloom (@JacobBloom31) March 25, 2021
This won't end well.
— Nullius in Verba (@MarciaAMcK) March 26, 2021
I hate it here.
— Veronik (@nonsensebugs) March 25, 2021
Your culture is a part of who you are, but that isn’t the same as skin color
— Georgia Smith (@Georgia85485397) March 25, 2021
And we’re wondering if Sesame Street thinks two Muppets can speak for all people of color.
I just hope they give those characters something else to say.
— Warren, leaving Chester (@2nd_tenor) March 25, 2021
Exactly.
Related:
Washington Post reports on books and programs to start the ‘social justice for toddlers’ conversation early https://t.co/sAbdqsJqHD
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) March 22, 2021