Sesame Street is introducing two new muppets to the crew to teach children about melanin and race for their ABC of Racial Literature program.
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The two characters, a father-son duo named Wes and Elijah will be joining the cast to teach children about race and our differences as explained by the assistant Vice President for Sesame Workshop Rocio Galarza. She said during an interview with Good Morning America that the clip is a great way to educate children about difficult concepts such as race. “Young kids, since infancy, start understanding differences and giving value to those differences,” she told the outlet. “The idea here is, how do we address it in an age-appropriate way?” she explained.
An accompanying video clip shows Elmo asking why Wes’s skin color is brown and Wes tells him it is because of the melanin in his skin. Elijah further explains to the kids, “Melanin is something that we each have inside our bodies that makes the outside of our bodies the skin color that it is. It also gives us our eye and our hair color.”
“The color of our skin is an important part of who we are but we should all know that it’s okay that we all look different in so very many ways,”
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Wes and his dad will not be the only new characters on the show and it will also discuss encounters of racism and how children can cope when approached with these situations.
“By encouraging these much-needed conversations through Coming Together, we can help children build a positive sense of identity and value the identities of others.”