One of the last places you would expect racism to show its ugly face would be at a theme park that is built around inclusion and diversity, but that is exactly what has embroiled Sesame Place and its horrible public relations attempts to contain the damage.

Sesame Place, located in Middletown Township, Bucks County, about 85 miles southeast of Lehighton, first opened in 1980 and is operated by SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment in a licensing agreement with Sesame Workshop, the umbrella organization that produces Sesame Street on PBS.

The 16-acre park includes interactive entertainment, shows, rides and water attractions. One of its main features is for many of the Sesame Street costumed characters to walk through the park to meet and greet their legions of little fans.

At the park, children are likely to encounter such costumed characters as Elmo, Grover, the Count, Zoe and Rosita.

Now, one would expect that those playing the roles of these characters would be trained in the ways of Sesame Street’s inclusive and diverse objectives, but perhaps the Rosita character did not get the memo or, for the matter, the training. Rosita was the first regular bilingual muppet on Sesame Street and is fluent in both English and Spanish.

Jodi Brown, of the Philadelphia area, had taken her daughter and niece, both 6, to the theme park earlier this summer, and as they were leaving she allowed the two to stop to watch Rosita, who was making the rounds high-fiving and interacting with children.

Brown took a nine-second video to capture Rosita reaching out to the children. Instead, the recording shows Rosita interacting with a white child before coming to the two children accompanying Brown. As the two reached out for a high-five or some other acknowledgment, Rosita waved them off with a “no” shake of the head and hand gesture and moved on. Brown said Rosita then high-fived another white child immediately afterward, but this was not shown on her video. Brown posted the video she had taken, and it has been seen more than a million times on social media.

Since then, a different family filed a $25 million discrimination lawsuit against the theme park, claiming that the same thing happened on their visit. Quinton Burns of Baltimore and his daughter, Kennedi Burns, claim that four employees in costume ignored them and other black guests while they “readily engaged with numerous similarly situated white customers” during a meet-and-greet at the park on June 18.

The original incident triggered damage control efforts by Sesame Place officials. One of the first statements was beyond pathetic. “The costumes our performers wear sometimes make it difficult to see at lower levels and sometimes our performers miss hug requests from guests,” the statement said.

OK. Now see whether your logic follows mine. You have characters who are specifically costumed to interact with young children, so you put them into costumes where they might not be able to see the children? That makes no sense to me; how about you?

Over three days, Sesame Place issued statements regarding the incident. The next one was a defense of the unnamed person playing the Rosita character: “The performer portraying Rosita has confirmed that the ‘no’ hand gesture seen several times in the video was not directed to any specific person, rather it was a response to multiple requests from someone in the crowd who asked Rosita to hold their child for a photo which is not permitted. The Rosita performer did not intentionally ignore the girls and is devastated about the misunderstanding,” the statement said. I looked at the video at least a half-dozen times, and I came away with the conclusion that Rosita was indeed waving off these small girls.

Next came the defense of the park but also an acknowledgment that maybe it can do a better job: “For over 40 years Sesame Place has worked to uphold the values of respect, inclusion and belonging. We are committed to doing a better job making children and families feel special, seen and included when they come to our parks,” it said.

At this point, Sesame Workshop officials got into the act and released this statement: “What these children experienced is unacceptable. We have been in contact with Sesame Place … and they have assured us that they will conduct bias training and a thorough review of the ways in which they engage with families and guests.”

Less than an hour later, Sesame Place posted a follow-up statement, which said: “We sincerely apologize to the family for their experience in our park. We know that it’s not OK. We will conduct training for our employees so they better understand, recognize and deliver an inclusive, equitable and entertaining experience to our guests.”

Then on Aug. 9, Sesame Place President Cathy Valeriano announced a company review and pledged to have all new and current employees complete a mandatory bias training course. The diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives involve a racial equity assessment and a commitment that all the company’s employees will have received bias training by the end of September.

Jodi Place rejected Sesame Place’s apology, saying that it was not sincere. Her attorney, B’Ivory LaMarr, agreed. “We want a genuine and authentic apology; we want the acceptance of responsibility,” he said.

Sesame Place officials have declined to respond to calls for Rosita’s firing, saying it is a personnel matter.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.