ORLANDO, Fla. — A Black family who alleges their young children faced racial discrimination from a costumed performer at Sesame Place Philadelphia earlier this month has retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is calling on its parent company, Orlando-based SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, to make amends.
Records show the family has not yet filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld. In a press conference Saturday, Crump said he and attorney B’Ivory LaMarr have been in touch with SeaWorld’s executives and lawyers.
“Will SeaWorld take advantage of the moment to make it a teachable moment, not just with their words but with their actions?” Crump asked. “Because that’s what the Black community is demanding, SeaWorld: action, for Nylah and Skylar and all the other unknown little Black children.”
Crump said LaMarr has received “dozens” of videos of Sesame Place performers ignoring other Black children.
After the girls’ mother and aunt, Jodi Brown, uploaded a video of the incident to Instagram on July 16, other people posted videos involving the same character, known as Rosita, appearing to brush off Black children’s requests for hugs and high-fives along a parade route.
Representatives for SeaWorld did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Sesame Place issued an apology to the Brown family Saturday, calling the girls’ experience with the costumed character “unacceptable” and saying it is launching mandatory employee training on inclusion and equity.
“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,” the unsigned statement read.
Sesame Place is in contact with the Brown family and their lawyers, the company said, and it has offered to meet with them personally to “deliver an apology and an acknowledgment that we are holding ourselves accountable for what happened.”
The company said it wants to hear from the family directly to understand how the experience affected them and to improve its operations in response.
In Brown’s video, Rosita walks a parade route and high-fives a couple of guests, wagging her finger at one, before shaking her head at the two girls and waving them off as they reach towards her.
“THIS DISGUSTING person blatantly told our kids NO then proceeded to hug the little white girl next to us,” Brown wrote in the caption, describing a moment not captured in the video.
The original video has nearly 900,000 views on Instagram. It was quickly reposted to Twitter, where users viewed one clip over 10 million times and weighed in with their commentary.
On July 17, Sesame Place posted a statement to Instagram apologizing to the family and saying performers’ costumes “sometimes make it difficult to see at lower levels.” The performer dressed as Rosita was “devastated about the misunderstanding” and said he or she was waving off repeated requests to hold a child for a photo, which the park does not allow.
The company invited the family back “for a special meet-and-greet opportunity with our characters.”
Sesame Place Philadelphia issued another statement the next day pledging to conduct training.
Universal Orlando is currently facing a lawsuit with similar circumstances. Families claim a costumed character dressed as Felonious Gru from the “Despicable Me” franchise displayed a hate symbol in photos taken with Black and Hispanic children in March 2019. The lawsuit is still ongoing, and Universal denies the family’s claims.
The Browns are the second family Crump has signed on with in recent months in a case involving an Orlando theme park. He is also representing the family of Tyre Sampson, a 14-year-old who died after falling from an Orlando drop tower in March.
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