Barbie And Sesame Street Join The Fight Against Racism In Their New Shows

• Following the killings of Black men and women such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Sesame Street and Barbie joined the fight against racism.
• The Muppets’ new show, “The Power of We,” is scheduled to air on October 15.
• Barbie, on the other hand, uploaded a Youtube video with her black friend Nikki discussing racism.

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The “Sesame Street” takes a stand against racism in their newest “Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism” town hall. They will be discussing the topic once again with a new focus on race scheduled to air this month. This decision was made amidst protests on the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor due to police brutality.

“We believe that this moment calls for a direct discussion about racism to help children grasp the issues,” Sesame Workshop executive vice president of creative and production, Kay Wilson Stallings said.

The program is entitled “The Power of We,” filled with puppets featuring short songs and kits with topics of racism that teach children to stand up against it, according to Fox News. 

For example, in one sketch, a black muppet dresses up as a superhero then a white muppet reprimands him thinking heroes can’t be black. But he snaps back and says that superheroes can be of any color.

In the song, “How Do You Know,” multi-colored muppets are featured illustrating the foolishness of discrimination on different skin color.

“Hey, Elmo, how would you feel if I said, ‘I don’t like you ’cause I don’t like the color red?’ ” sings the black 8-year-old Muppet, Tamir. Then Elmo responds with: “Elmo wouldn’t care what you said ’cause Elmo is proud, proud to be red!”

The PSA will also feature their current and former human casts, and cameos including “Grown-ish” star Yara Shahidi, “Hamilton” actor Christopher Jackson, and the singer Andra Day.

The airing date will be on October 15 at  HBO Max, PBS Kids, and the PBS 24/7 streaming channel. 

Aside from the muppets, Mattel’s Barbie and her black friend Nikki also tackled racism on the Youtube video they released on Wednesday. 

“There is a huge movement going on,” says Barbie in the video, which has been viewed  over 130,000 times since upload. “Millions of people across the world are standing up to fight against racism, and they’re doing this because too often and for such a long time, people have been treated unfairly, and in some cases even hurt by others, because of the color of their skin.”

Nikki agreed it’s a tough topic and then she recalled how she was unfairly treated by the security on the beach, and how she got discriminated by a French teacher just because she was black.

“White people get an advantage that they didn’t earn, and black people get a disadvantage that they don’t deserve,” Barbie said.

And that’s exactly why people are protesting Nikki emphasized. “Because when enough of us stand together, people pay attention,” she said.

Source: New York Post