This is not The Onion or The Babylon Bee.
Two families have sued Universal Orlando because a man dressed up as Gru from Despicable Me supposedly flashed a white power sign in photos with biracial children…in February and March 2019.
The plaintiffs are Tiffiney and Richard Zingler along with Geisy Moreno and Joel Rodriguez:
The subject Complaint regards a Universal Studios employee dressed as an animated character who targeted a black autistic child and a Spanish speaking Hispanic child based on their race, color and national origin. The two young vulnerable children gleefully and innocently ran up to meet the disguised man during family trips to Universal Orlando-sponsored events. In display of open hatred towards the girls, the costumed man made a White-Power hand symbol while posing for family photographs and videos taken by their unsuspecting parents. Universal Orlando took no action to detect, avoid nor prevent this offensive and discriminatory behavior repeated at its park and hotel event. See below photos attached as exhibits and referenced in further detail herein:
The plaintiffs claimed the actor caused them:
The Zingler daughter wanted to use a photo in school. However, she could not use it “because of the White Power symbol prominently displayed in the video-still photograph.” Therefore, she became “emotionally upset, humiliated, embarrassed and suffered a loss of dignity.”
The Zinglers told their child the “man did a bad thing to her because he did not like her because of her race and color.”
The conversation caused the child “emotional harm, humiliation, embarrassment and loss of dignity when realizing that the man dressed as her beloved animated character placed a symbol on her shoulder in clear indication of his hatred of her due to her race and color.”
The parents also complained that other Universal employees encouraged the actor’s behavior because they lured the Zingler’s daughter “to stand beside Gru and watched knowingly as Gru placed the hate symbol on” her shoulder.
Have these families never been to a theme park before? Characters have employees with them to help out with pictures and autographs. They also stay with the characters to help keep everything in order in case a bunch of families swarms a character.
The Zinglers “discovered” the actor made the OK sign when they recently looked through the photos.
The “OK” sign never had racist intentions.
Universal fired the actor! Thankfully, no one revealed the actor’s name. This poor person did nothing wrong:
“We never want our guests to experience what this family did. This is not acceptable and we are sorry – and we are taking steps to make sure nothing like this happens again. We can’t discuss specifics about this incident, but we can confirm that the actor no longer works here. We remain in contact with the family and will work with them privately to make this right.”
Tiffiney and Richard Zingler “just wanted to take them to see the minions.”
The Zinglers found a video “that confirmed their worst fears” after seeing the sign in more pictures.
Richard insisted that the gesture is “more than an ‘OK’ sign” and not everyone understands “what the sign means.”
The supposed racist intentions behind the OK gesture blew up during the Army and Navy game in 2019. The Navy launched an investigation, wasted time and money, to find the cadets played the “circle game.”
The Anti-Defamation League even said: “Because of the traditional meaning of the “okay” hand gesture, as well as other usages unrelated to white supremacy, particular care must be taken not to jump to conclusions about the intent behind someone who has used the gesture.”
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