Sesame Place apologizes after facing backlash over a character appearing to ignore 2 young Black girls

• Sesame Place was accused of discrimination at its Philadelphia theme park.

• A mother posted a video of her two daughters being skipped by a character in costume signaling "no."

Sesame Place, a Sesame Street-themed park in Philadelphia, apologized after a viral video appeared to show one of the characters ignoring two young Black girls at a parade where children were greeting the characters.

The video, posted on Instagram, shows the Rosita character high-fiving and shaking hands with members of the crowd until she appears to give a no signal to a person behind the girls and the girls themselves. The two girls, sporting Sesame Street-themed backpacks, seem confused as the character passed by their outstretched arms.

The viral clip caught the attention of Grammy-winning singer Kelly Rowland, among others. Rowland reposted the video to her Instagram story on Sunday with the caption "OH HELL NAWWW" scrawled across it. "TF! This just made me so mad!" she wrote in another caption for the clip.

The singer posted another clip to her story where she turned the camera on herself and revealed how she would have reacted to the incident. "OK, so had that been me, that whole parade would've been in flames," Rowland said.

"Are you serious?! You're not going to speak to my child? And did you see that baby's face at the end? The little one with the pink on? She deserves an explanation," she added.

Rowland is a mother of two. She and her husband, talent manager Tim Weatherspoon, have two sons Titan Jewell, 7, and Noah Jon, 1.

Sesame Place responded to the outrage surrounding the video with an Instagram statement on Sunday.

"The performer portraying the Rosita character has confirmed that the 'no' hand gesture seen several times in the video was not directed to any specific person, rather it was a response to multiple requests from someone in the crowd who asked Rosita to hold their child for a photo which is not permitted," the park said in a statement posted to Instagram.

The park said they spoke with the family and invited them back for a "special meet-and-greet opportunity."

Tamika Mallory, the cofounder of social justice group Until Freedom, said the statement was "insufficient" and "disrespectful" in an Instagram post "warning" Black families visiting the park.

"Our children deserve to experience joy at a theme park free of discrimination," the post said.