‘Sesame Street’ Models Inclusivity, but It Has Left Black Viewers Behind

On July 16, one of the Sesame Place theme park’s characters, Rosita, allegedly appeared to shake her head at two Black girls who had their arms outstretched for a hug, dismissing them after engaging with White children moments before. After a video of the incident went viral and the park issued an inadequate apology, the girls’ families filed a $25 million lawsuit and the theme park announced new diversity training for employees.

{snip}

Initially, when video of the incident went viral, this tie to the “Sesame Street” brand made the alleged racism shocking to some online commenters because Americans have long perceived the show as a standard-bearer for racial diversity and inclusion. Yet history shows that the video is a visual representation of the way “Sesame Street” has often avoided talking about issues of race, and in doing so, has left Black viewers behind.

Shortly after “Sesame Street” premiered in fall 1969, a Black adviser for the show, Chester Pierce, wrote to creator Joan Ganz Cooney that while the show had a number of admirable qualities, he felt it was “more geared for Scarsdale than Watts.” Using the juxtaposition of a predominantly White suburban town and a Black urban neighborhood, Pierce argued that the show was not doing enough to reach Black viewers, especially since doing so was pivotal to securing funding for the creation of the program.

At least two of “Sesame Street’s” original funders, the Ford Foundation and agencies within the Office of Economic Opportunity, only committed funds to the project once it promised to reach minority audiences. But the show’s success also depended on securing a large enough audience to demonstrate its value and attractiveness. Louis Hausman, adviser to the U.S. Commissioner of Education, cautioned the workshop that targeting the show “too heavily at the disadvantaged” would alienate White audiences and imperil its success.

Producers were initially sensitive to this concern. They decided to feature a racially diverse cast and set the show in the city, but hesitated to go further. Yet advisers like Pierce pushed them to do more. {snip}

{snip}

Producers attempted to fulfill this mission in a number of ways. In season three, they invited prominent Black activists and artists to visit “Sesame Street” and speak directly about race.

Nina Simone sang “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black”; folk artist Brother Kirk performed songs about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman; and the Rev. Jesse Jackson recited a rendition of the civil rights call and response poem “I Am — Somebody” with a group of children.

{snip}

Jackson’s appearance is now regularly featured on “Sesame Street’s” social media, particularly when the show wants to promote its legacy of diversity and commitment to racial justice. But in 1972, White parents denounced the performance.

“Appalled,” “shocked,” “disappointed” and “disgusted,” White parents wrote to the workshop to express their concern about the “appropriateness of the Black Power type incidents” in this series of “Sesame Street” episodes.

{snip}

And the workshop listened. Moving forward, they chose a more colorblind approach, stepping away from explicitly talking about race and featuring Black artists who encouraged the racial pride of Black viewers. Colorblindness enabled producers to continue to represent Black viewers through the racial diversity of the cast without alienating the White audiences outraged by Jackson’s version of “I Am — Somebody.” {snip}

{snip}

“Sesame Street” has occasionally broken the colorblind script. In the early 1990s, the show featured a four-season-long curriculum on multicultural education. Incidents of racial violence in cities made head writer Norman Stiles realize that there wasn’t “a heckuva lot of racial harmony” outside of “Sesame Street.” Executive producer Dulcy Singer saw it as a time to be “more explicit about these things than in the past.”

{snip}

In 2021, the workshop again interrupted its usual colorblind programming to demonstrate “Sesame Street’s” commitment to racial justice after the murder of George Floyd. It debuted a new initiative called “Coming Together,” which aimed to provide educational resources for families and integrate content about race and racism into “Sesame Street.”

{snip}