Louie And Elmo Sesame Street Inspire A New Era Of Combating Racism: Early Education

Louie and Elmo (Source: IMDB)

JAKARTA - The death of George Floyd continues to inspire. Waves of solidarity and resistance to racism and police brutality are forming in various countries. Louie, Elmo's father, a puppet character in the television series Sesame Street also spoke. What Louie has done may inspire parents in the world to educate their children with values of tolerance and equality.

In a special episode titled Coming Together: Standing Up To Racism, CNN collaborates with Sesame Street to provide a space for discussion regarding racism and the solidarity movement against Floyd that is flowing around the world, especially the United States (US). In the episode, Louie explains what racism is and the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

Apart from Louie, the hour-long episode featured a number of other Sesame Street characters, such as Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and Rosita. Puppets sit with experts to answer questions raised by families.

Reported by Metro.co.uk, explained, television programs were held to educate the world's children, especially in the US, about what racism is and why people took to the streets for Floyd's death. This episode was talked about, drawing praise everywhere.

Elmo, like other three year olds, clearly does not understand how racism occurs in Uncle Sam's country. In fact, the problem of racism is closely related to the social situation of the country.

In one scene, Elmo asks Louie: Dad, Elmo doesn't understand, what happened? Why are all these people together?

"They gathered to protest," replied Louie. "Protests are when people get together to show that they are upset and disagree about something. They want to make other people aware of this problem. With demonstrations, people can share their feelings and work together to improve things," he added.

"They look sad, are they pissed off?" follow-up question from Elmo.

"Yes and they have the right to become Elmo," he explained. 'They are upset that racism is a big problem in our country. Racism is when people treat others unfairly because of their appearance or skin color.

“Not all streets are like Sesame Street. … What we are seeing is people saying 'enough is enough.' They want to end racism. ”@ Elmo's dad Louie explains why people are protesting across the US. https://t.co/icV04F4FNW #CNNSesameStreet pic.twitter.com/1efrMAzZ8V

- CNN (@CNN) June 6, 2020

This early education was highlighted by many protesters, including Star Wars star John Boyega who took to the streets. In addition, Bayern Munich star David Alaba, who through his Instagram account said, "No child is born racist. So, educate our children based on love for others. Racist systems can be fought with education."