Lawsuit: Disneyland Employee Dressed as White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland Refused to Hug Black Child

Lawsuit: Disneyland Employee Dressed as White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland Refused to Hug Black Child

By Gustavo Arellano Wed., Feb. 6 2013 at 7:30 AM

If you want to go through a roll call of possibly crypto-racist characters in the Disney canon, the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland would rank pretty low, even though he IS white and some of the morons over at Stormfront have long used him as a user-profile pic. Hell, all I remember from the cartoon is that the guy was chubby and he kept running because he was late to something. Seemed like a nebbish to me.

But a San Diego family that's African-American is alleging in a lawsuit that last summer, a Disneyland cast member dressed as the White Rabbit refused to hug their son while freely hugging white and Asian children.

And to make the story even better? The family's surname is Black.

Here is the original report by KGTV-TV Channel 10 in San Diego. What's most damning in this story is that Disneyland brass not only apologized for the incident, but offered to give the family $500 in park passes--but only if they signed off on a confidentiality agreement. Hmm...

KTLA-TV Channel 5 up here also had pictures of non-whte children hugging the White Rabbit, but it was unclear if the Blacks took those photos at the time.

Disneyland refused comment as they have yet to see the lawsuit, but it'll be interesting to see how far it'll go. The company's attention to customer satisfaction is legendary, but so are their lawyers...should be fun!

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tmichell

I bet if the little children were named Abram and Meier, the Simon Weisenthal Center would have been out there to shut Disneyland down and sue the pants off the Disney corporation. Not only that, but we would have had "tolerance" shoved in our faces over and over again by every form of media, not to mention the government, state, office of civil rights, league of tolerance and every other "rights" organization getting involved because little Abram's human rights would've been violated and he would have suffered irreparable damage which would have lead the already-rich family to receive a multimillion dollar payout from Disney. The family would've also gotten a blockbuster HBO movie deal to tell their story and, as a condition of the lawsuit, Disney would have to erect statues of the children and set them up at the front gates to the park and create an attraction that teaches sensitivity and tolerance. If you've ever been a victim of any kind of racism or discrimination, you know it when you see it.

Mitchell_Young topcommenter

You know what's funny about this -- the black women didn't get the Rabbit's schtick (derived from the story). In the video, she mimics the Rabbit pointing to his watch pocket watch and making a 'I gotta get going' gesture. Hey black woman, I'll say this so you can hear "THAT"S IN CHARACTER, THAT"S PART OF THE STORY!" Even Aztlanista editors of minor Alt Weekly Rags know that.

Ray Man Wut

Now is not the time for us to bicker about our differences. Now is the time for us as citizens to put aside those differences to unite against these ultra wealthy bastards and our ever increasingly corrupt government. Has the weekly done a story detailing how our rights are being taken from us slowly and methodically? Or how Obama is killing U.S. citizens without trial? For a newspaper claiming to be all about civil liberties one would think that'd be right up your alley. If bush was doing this you'd be all over that shit. Or do you not criticize Obama because he's a democrar. Hypocritcal bastards....i'm sorely dissapointed.

Ray Man Wut

Probably an overly sensitive family. We don't know the.exact circumstances. For all we know the kid couldnt make his way through a crowd of children to the front. Maybe he didn't see the kid, those costumes limit vision. But jump straight to the racist argument.....this shit is getting old and people need to toughen the fuck up.

Putra Asa

http://www.facebook.com/hobaluba?sk=app_208195102528120

Mitchell_Young topcommenter

What bullshit. That POS white lawyer needs to be reeducated.

Brian J. Arra

I refuse to shake a person's hand. I know there are a lot of dirty fkers that don't wash their hands.

copain.trained

@Brian J. Arra wtf? are you from Wisconsin or something? The person is in a rabbit costume, whose sole job purpose is to meet and greet. No one cares that you choose to be an ignorant asshole...

BobLoblawsLawBlog

1 Like

I'll reserve judgement on this. Disney is a target of a lot of frivilous action because of their deep pockets and I can imagine that they would normally try to avoid calling in the lawyers with a gift card (which would always be accompanied with an NDA). I worked there many years ago and all I saw was a company that was extremely image conscience and realized that the "guest" experience had a lot to do with that image. This certainly would be outside the norm.