After Netflix announced it is developing kids programming around racial justice, now the people behind Sesame Street are creating race-based content aimed at children and infants, Breitbart reports.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street is adding two new Black muppets, 5-year-old Wes and his father, Elijah, “to help teach parents and children about racial literacy, ” the company announced Tuesday.
The studio released a new set of instructional resources titled “ABC’s of Racial Literacy,” which the company said represents part of its commitment to “racial justice.”
The “ABC’s of Racial Literacy” provides children, parents and educators the language and tools to talk more openly about race and the dangers of racism.
The company which debuted more than five decades ago, in 1969, said they have always stood for “diversity, inclusion, equity, and kindness.”
“The work to dismantle racism begins by helping children understand what racism is, and how it hurts people,” Sesame Workshop said in an Instagram post. The program provides resources that are “designed to help families celebrate their own unique identities and answer children’s sometimes-tough questions about race and racism.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMwzo5aAoeZ/
One tutorial says infants show a preference to their own racial group as early as six months.
“Infants show a preference for the faces of people from their own racial group as early as six months,” the tutorial says. “Start early by introducing children to people who don’t look like them, and let children see pictures of people with a variety of skin tones and facial features.”
In one of the new videos, “Elmo has a question,” children are taught about the importance of skin tone and melanin.
In a group activity, children are asked to create self-portraits and taught to focus on their outward appearances. The instructions say it is “especially important for Black and Brown children to celebrate their outward appearance in order to keep strong within themselves as they grow up in a racist society,” according to Breitbart.