Family Sues Disneyland Claiming Rabbit Character Was Racist

From Huff Po: A Southern California family has sued Disneyland over an allegedly racist rabbit.

The Black family of San Diego, Calif., is suing Disneyland after the two Black children, ages 6 and 9, attempted to hug the rabbit character from "Alice In Wonderland" and the man exhibited what the family say was racist behavior, reports Los Angeles local news outlet KTLA. When one of the boys attempted to hug the rabbit, the costumed actor reportedly turned his back. When the other child went to hold his hand, "he kept on flicking [his] hand off."

“Our first instinct was okay, maybe they have new policies, maybe they aren’t supposed to touch the kids,” the boys' father, Jason Black Sr., told KTLA. “So then, you know, we stood by and we just watched."

Black Sr. continued, saying, “There was two other [white] kids that came up, and the rabbit showered them… hugged them, kissed them, posed with them and took pictures. Meanwhile, that made my kids feel horrible.”

The incident occurred last August, and the Black family has been battling with Disneyland over the alleged incident ever since, according to Fox local affiliate KSAZ. After filing a complaint and rejecting offers from the park, the family hired a lawyer.

When asked for comment, Disneyland officials told the network, "We cannot comment on something that we are not aware of -- and that we carefully review all guest claims."

“Regardless of whether the guy in the costume was a racist – I don't know who he is or if he’s white – the way he behaved, he was treating my clients differently,” the family’s attorney, Dan Gilleon, told the New York Daily News. “And the only thing that was different about them was that they were black.”

On Thursday, San Diego's ABC 10 News reported that a Los Angeles woman filed a separate racism lawsuit against Disneyland alleging that Donald Duck ignored her children because they are black.

These two examples may not be the only ones, claims Gilleon.

"I've gotten many emails and voicemails that I'm looking into. What this tells me is this isn't an isolated incident," the attorney told ABC 10 News. "It doesn't mean Disneyland is racist, but they have some people in the company who aren't playing by the rules and are being discriminatory."

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Comments

[Mollywobbles]

Maybe your kids are just ugly.

In all seriousness, though, that is really strange behavior to be exhibiting. Brushing the kids' hands away? That's just...yeah, that sounds like racism, especially if the actor was extremely affectionate towards other (white) kids.

[BlaqueKatt]

interesting how it's automaticly "rascist", a friend of mine had a conplaint filed against her for "rascism" because she refused to hold a customer's baby while the customer ran to pick up something else, because she had just held a white baby, while the white customer wrote a check. The white customer was the cashier's babysitter, and the white baby she held was HERS. but yes jump to conclusions after only hearing one side of the story(from the person who has something to gain). Maybe the performer was rascist, maybe the kids were hellspawn, maybe there was a special event or line that the ignored kids bypassed. Until we hear another side I'm reserving judgement.

[Karebear]

I have a picture from my youth of me looking at Dopey's ass because the punk wouldn't turn around and hug me. (He just didn't see me, I was a short kid - still am short.)

I'm sure there's more to this story though.

[Queer Geek]

The White Rabbit is the Man! The Man oppresses everyone!

Then again it's a freaking slave in a suit! Seriously, those things freak me out. You want that hideous thing playing Pedobear to your kids, then have at it.

Racism my ass!

[NC Tony]

I'm going with what someone said above. We only have the families side of the story to go on, not the performers. Maybe the kids were being brats (obviously the parents aren't going to admit their kids were being brats), or there was a line they were supposed to be on, or maybe the guy in the costume really was a racist. There's no way to know for sure until we hear the other side of the story.

[RetailBird]

You cannot see a damn thing in those costumes, so if some one is grabbing at you from behind you are going to brush them off. There is a reason the costumed characters have a staff member guiding them around, they're almost blind in there. Not to mention how often you have to switch out characters to keep the actors from passing out. It was Aug in Cali, there is a good chance the character was on his way to switch out and cool down.

[Fingers]

Retailbird is so true. Those things aren't flimsy cloth. They're a portal oven with a view hole that come in a one size fits all. Good luck being that meager percentage that can see out of there! Then there's the whole other concept of movement.

Disney's big on this crap. If the person shadowing the rabbit in any way suggested that the kids were being shoved off (All black kids), Disney would have already taken action. Then again, we've heard nothing from them.So who's to say?

Either way, if I were in those parents' shoes, I would have wandered off to find another character so my kids wouldn't be disappointed.

[Larry Berry]

Another point to the "one sided story", is that IF that did happen it should have been reported at the time, so it could be looked into. Not sue later and expect "okay, we just believe everything you said, here's some money". I'm not saying it didn't happen and maybe it was for racist reasons, but when it's not reported at the time, they don't know if it did happen, who was in the suit at the time, and if they have a history of such behavior. It's equivalent to suing mcdonalds saying one of their employees beat me up, but not reporting it at the time, and not knowing which employee did it, just trust me they did.

[Skittles]

While the truth remains to be seen I find the "if there's smoke there's fire" fallacy to be annoying. I do find it some what suspicious on both sides of the argument. Why isn't Disney a little more forthcoming about the facts from their side of the story? Why did the family wait so long to file a lawsuit? I tend to believe Disney not because they are a particularly trustworthy company but because any large company is victimized through lawsuits. More importantly why not confront the actual individual at the time of the event, or look into filing criminal charges as opposed to dragging a whole company to court?

[Kabe]

I have to wonder ... is this maybe in the White Rabbit's character? Some Disney characters are expected to play a role when in the foam heads. When my fiance and I went to WDW a few years ago, we met the Red Queen. I was all excited to get a picture with her ... until I discovered that apparently she doesn't *do* pictures. When I tried, her handler pointed at me and yelled that I stole the tarts. When I hesitated, the Red Queen started to chase me around outside the store in Toontown!! It took me a solid few minutes of trying to get around her into the store before it dawned on me to point at someone and say THEY'D stolen the tarts. I pointed at FI and she went after him. It was cute (and I did get a pic of the Queen "beheading" FI with her hand), but also kind of ... intensely in character, because she was in the store about 10 minutes later and when she noticed me looking at her, she half came at me again!

[Techtyger]

Blaquekatt: To me, at least, there's a big difference betweeo 'hold my kid for a second while I use both hands to write this check' and 'Hold my kid while I leave the store entirely'. I'd have refused too.

I'm a furry, and at one of the few cons I went to, I met a couple of people who had done the suits at Disney. One of them had been stabbed in the back. Fortunately, the suit was so thick the blade didn't reach her, and the clown was arrested. Another had the (attached with a harness) tail yanked on so hard it broke ribs. All of them said that it's very hard to see anything, so unless they're in front where the limited field of view is, I'd suspect they'd brush it off too.

People try this kind of thing with Disney all the time. They have a lot of money and they'll pay just to shut someone up, right? There was a sexual harassment suit once where someone said one of the three little pigs had honked her tits. The guy wore the suit into the courtroom and showed that the little flippers the thing has can barely reach the suit itself, let alone actually maneuver to touch something that he wouldn't be able to see anyway.