Denied kids' family lawyers up...racial fear incident

Muppet character Rosita appears to ignore, or reject, two Black children at Sesame Place amusement park -- and now their family has hired an attorney to investigate and potentially sue.TMZ reports that B'Ivory LaMarr, the attorney representing Rosita's family, says the family wants to investigate the incident by interviewing others who attended and reviewing Rosita's videos appearing online. There are other clips allegedly showing Rosita refusing high-fives and interacting with children of color. A lawsuit is one of the options they have, according to LaMarr.

There was a video online of Saturday's incident, which showed the character giving high fives to people in front of the two girls, then gesturing to them but preventing them from interacting with each other.During the brief exchange between the family and the police, they claim they were told verbally "no" by the police. They are "completely appalled" by what they describe as intentional mistreatment of the daughters.

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They also don't believe Sesame Place's response that they addressed the employee's behavior immediately after the clip went viral. According to LaMarr: "While we hate to assume 'race' as the motivation for the performer's actions, such actions, before and after the young girl's request, lead only to one conclusion."On "TMZ Live" Monday, Tamika Mallory, a human rights activist, was one of the first to blast Sesame Place after its response. The mother of the girls, who said that she was "really hurt" by the lack of apology, says it is nothing more than gaslighting.

In the weeks since Saturday's incident, more videos have circulated, indicating a pattern rather than an isolated incident.According to Sesame Place Philadelphia's spokesperson, the park sincerely apologizes for the family's experience, and announces it will conduct training for employees to help them understand, recognize, and provide an inclusive, fair, and entertaining environment for our guests."