My Life as a Furry Red Monster by Kevin Clash

Author:Kevin Clash
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780767926324
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2006-09-05T10:00:00+00:00

“ELMO LOVES HIS red fur,” Elmo tells Whoopi Goldberg in a sketch they did together. They are sitting close together on a bench, and Elmo is comparing his appearance to Whoopi’s.

“I love my brown skin,” Whoopi replies. She touches his red fur and tickles him, and Elmo touches her dreads.

Like many children, Elmo is curious about the differences between himself and the new people he meets. When Whoopi Goldberg visited Sesame Street, it was a perfect opportunity for Elmo to investigate the miraculous variety of skin color (or fur color, as the case may be).

Raised by a single mother in lower Manhattan, Whoopi had a number of jobs before she hit it big. In a funny twist, she worked as a babysitter for a woman whose children auditioned for and regularly appeared on Sesame Street, and she regularly ferried them to and from the set. When I look at Whoopi, I see a woman who is still actively involved in getting children where they need to be.

Whoopi will tell you that she is a big fan of Elmo and a friend of Sesame Street for a number of reasons, but chief among them is her shared desire to foster self-esteem in young people. She has made a career out of celebrating individuality, and though she may not be secretary-general of the United Nations, she’s just as much a symbol of diversity and tolerance as Kofi Annan.

In their scene on the bench, Whoopi and Elmo are modeling self-esteem. If children are not taught to value themselves, then they will not value others. And if they don’t learn to respect each other, then those damaging assumptions about things like race and gender and religion will begin to blur their vision of the world.

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