Sesame Street Falls Short, Even Lies

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Sesame Street. My daughter was raised on the very first Sesame Streets ever – I even went through some high hurdles to be able to borrow a TV for those Sesame Street viewing mornings!

I know I have some nerve critiquing the icon of progressive children’s TV – like a catholic criticizing the pope – but I dare because Sesame Street has failed, at least in this video clip, to accurately and even honestly ‘explain’ the really unexplainable racism truth.

To begin, how can you have a conversation about racism without once using the word “white” in the explanation? And then when Elmo lists the skin color of his friends, although it’s very hard for me to understand he mentions “Black, Brown or tan (I think), purple, pink” no distinguishable “white”.

Then Elmo characterizes the protestors who are shouting “Black Lives Matter” as appearing ‘sad’. NO Sesame Street, protestors appear and are MAD. And mad is, at the very least, as okay a feeling, a response as all others, not to mention mad is the DOMINANT feeling. Racism should and does make us very, very, very angry – so angry we have not choice but to act to end it.

Plus the use of ‘unfairly’ was an okay beginning explanation but made me feel very uncomfortable when nothing else was added. “Unfair” might be all the ways in which Black people are discriminated against like denied housing or an education – that’s fuckin UNFAIR.

But murder, violence, not being able to sleep while Black, jog while Black shop while Black without being murdered, that goes way beyond ‘unfair’. White people/police HURT Black people. Hurt. A child, a three year old, can understand hurt and maybe much better than the concept of ‘fair’.

Lastly (I think), Elmo’s dad claims that Black and brown people are being treated unfairly because of “how they look, their culture, race and who they are”.

BULLfuckinSHITE! White people treat Black (and brown) people ‘unfairly’ because white people want and need to dominate and exploit. Period. Black people are not murdered because of the color of their skin or their culture or who they are: they are murdered because of racism which is white supremacy, white privilege, white domination. Because white people have in the past and continue presently to murder Black people with impunity 99.9% of the time.

It’s like saying a womon is treated ‘unfairly’ because she wears a skimpy dress and high heels or because she’s emotional and aggressive. NO she’s treated unfairly because men have to remain in power and exert their power over womyn.

Perhaps what Sesame Street meant to convey is that Black people are an easy target for Whites because of the color of their skin, as womyn are easy targets for men because of their physical appearances.

Once again, Sesame Street has put the onus of racism on the shoulders of Black people instead of landing it squarely where it belongs: on white folks. We feel comfortable pointing out and characterizing Black people as the ‘victims’ but not white people as the perpetrators.

Until white people can face the fact that white people began, continue, are responsible for and benefit horrendously from racism - in fact everything we have in this country we have because of racism, because we genocided the original people living here, we enslaved people from another continent, and we have been at war against almost every country in the world mostly inhabited by people of color for almost every single year of our existence - until white people own this horrific predominant legacy, the system of racial dominance and oppression will thrive at white people's behest.

I commend Sesame Street for attempting to tackle this horrific legacy we have STILL in our country - as long as they know it's only a 'flawed' beginning.