Family sues Disneyland over alleged racism
A family in California is suing Disneyland claiming that one of the theme park's characters ignored their children because of the colour of their skin.
ABC 10News reports that five-year-old Razzi White visited Disneyland with his family in December to celebrate his two-year-old brother Ryder's birthday.
Razzi wanted to have his photo taken with Donald Duck and reportedly walked within three feet of the Disney character but he made a deliberate move away from the child and went to play with a baby in a pushchair.
The White family were first in a queue, just a foot away, and Razzi's mother Natasha asked Donald Duck twice for a picture, but instead he went up to a young white girl near a bench and hugged her.
After three minutes of waiting the family left in frustration and as she turned around Natasha witnessed Donald Duck hugging the white children who were behind her family in the queue.
She said Razzi asked her: '"Why didn't Donald want to take a picture with me?" Inside, I wanted to cry. This was discrimination.'
10News reporter Michael Chen asked her, 'Couldn't you have misread the situation?'
'I didn't because it was done in a blatant and ugly way,' she replied.
Ms White said she complained and was sent a letter offering passes that would get her to the front of the queues at the theme park to alleviate her 'disappointment'.
Lawyer Dan Gilleon, who is representing the White family, said: 'I've gotten many emails and voicemails that I'm looking into.
'What this tells me is this isn't an isolated incident. 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.'
The alleged discrimination comes just days after reports of another family claiming the White Rabbit character brushed off their children to hug white and Asian children.
According to the Huffington Post, the Black family is suing Disneyland after one of their two children, aged six and nine, attempted to hug the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and the character reportedly turned his back.
When the other child tried to hold his hand, 'he kept flicking [his] hand off'.
Watch the report from ABC 10News below:
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