{"id":31358,"date":"2016-04-09T12:52:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T19:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=31358"},"modified":"2016-04-13T09:24:34","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T16:24:34","slug":"fox-news-freak-out-sesame-street-intruduces-afghan-girl-muppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=31358","title":{"rendered":"Fox News Freak Out: Sesame Street Introduces Afghan Girl Muppet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week the venerable PBS children&#8217;s program, Sesame Street, made a historic addition to its cast of lovable characters. For the first time in its decades long run an Afghan girl will join the Muppets for its broadcast in the Afghanistan version of the show. Zari is six years old and is excited about the opportunities she will have to learn and make new friends. But not everyone feels the same way.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/FoxNation\/foxnation-sesame-street-zari.jpg\" alt=\"Fox News Sesame Street\" width=\"550\" height=\"296\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31360\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NewsCorpse\/posts\/1309720005709458\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share on Facebook\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/Advs\/fb-share-tn.jpg\" width=\"274\" height=\"20\" class=\"aligncenter\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The news of Zari&#8217;s debut has produced the all too predictable rash of bigotry that we&#8217;ve all come to expect from the conservative hate mongers who believe that all Muslims are terrorists. Apparently this also applies to cloth puppets of children on educational TV. What they are afraid of was announced by the producers in this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sesameworkshop.org\/press-releases\/sesame-street-debuts-first-afghan-muppet-six-year-old-girl-zari-on-co-production-baghch-e-simsim\/\" target=\"_blank\">press release<\/a> and video:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Sesame Workshop unveiled today its first Afghan Muppet, Zari, a curious and eager six year-old girl, who will make her debut in season five of Baghch-e-Simsim\u2014the local co-production of Sesame Street. Zari, whose name means \u201cshimmering,\u201d will be featured in new, locally produced segments that focus on curriculum topics like girls\u2019 empowerment, national identity, physical health, and social and emotional well being.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I8aZVhresfQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sounds terrifying, doesn&#8217;t it? What&#8217;s more, Sherrie Westin, Executive VP of Sesame Workshop, told reporters that Zari <em>&#8220;is modeling for young girls that it is wonderful to go to school and that it&#8217;s OK to dream about having a career.&#8221;<\/em> In a country where girls are often discouraged, or even forbidden, to attend school, this should be welcomed as progress toward a more inclusive society. It&#8217;s an example of American media having a positive influence on some of the more oppressive cultural aspects of other countries.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the hatred that infects the right-wing in this country is at least as oppressive as the Taliban. A few of the headlines generated by conservative media include knee-jerk condemnations like <em>&#8220;Sesame Street Uses New Muslim Muppet, Zari, To Indoctrinate Kids,&#8221; &#8220;Sesame Street Goes Halal, Incorporates Sharia Law &#038; Islam Into New Episodes,&#8221;<\/em> and <em>&#8220;Sesame Street Afghanistan Gets New Female Muslim Puppet: &#8216;Asalaam Alaaikum'&#8221;<\/em> Of course, much what they allege is simply untrue. Zari is identified as Afghan, not Muslim. And there is no indication that religion or Sharia Law will play any part in the character&#8217;s role on the program.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the more heated criticisms of Zari are centered on what the wingnuts regard as hypocrisy for having a girl represented on the program despite the sexism that exists in that part of the world. This is an utterly absurd argument. First of all, if they were really worried about the place of women in Afghan society they should be thrilled that a TV show is working to improve the situation by advocating for more education and opportunity for girls and women. Secondly, it&#8217;s the wingnuts who are the hypocrites. They are as dismissive of women as many of the Muslims they castigate. Take a look at the type and tone of complaints they level at American women in politics, including Hillary Clinton. For the record, a <a href=\"http:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS?order=wbapi_data_value_2015+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&#038;sort=desc\" target=\"_blank\">ranking<\/a> of the proportion of legislative seats held by women in 213 countries puts Afghanistan at 49. The United States is 94th &#8211; below Kenya (93), Saudi Arabia (92), and Pakistan (83), to name a few.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, the rightist bigots are flying off the rails with vile insults directed at a make-believe character in the form of an adorable puppet. They make insinuations about her being fitted with a suicide vest or preparing to engage in a jihad. This sort of xenophobic zealotry was particularly notable at the home of brain-dead bias, Fox Nation. As usual, the commenters there spoke for the community of American bigots with their customary flare for blind hatred (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?page_id=13324\" target=\"_blank\">The Collected Hate Speech Of The Fox News Community<\/a>).<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><strong>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00QSSMOES\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=newscorpsecom-20&#038;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS\" target=\"_blank\">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.<\/a><br \/>\nAvailable now at Amazon.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/FoxNation\/foxnation-comments-sesame-street-zari.jpg\" alt=\"Fox Nation Sesame Street Comments\" width=\"550\" height=\"848\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31361\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7BChNIS8HWs?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week the venerable PBS children&#8217;s program, Sesame Street, made a historic addition to its cast of lovable characters. For the first time in its decades long run an Afghan girl will join the Muppets for its broadcast in the Afghanistan version of the show. Zari is six years old and is excited about the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,684,417],"tags":[527,33,1143,957],"class_list":["post-31358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-media-bias","category-racism","tag-fox-nation","tag-fox-news","tag-racism","tag-sesame-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-sesame-street-zari.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-89M","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4560,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4560","url_meta":{"origin":31358,"position":0},"title":"Primetime Propaganda And The Sesame Street Path To Socialism","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/3\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Ben Shapiro's \"Primetime Propaganda\" is a book that perfectly epitomizes the rightist paranoia about liberal bogeymen under our beds, in our closets, and, most of all, on our TV sets. The book is promoted as... \"The inside story of how the most powerful medium of mass communication in human history\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50620,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=50620","url_meta":{"origin":31358,"position":1},"title":"CNN&#8217;s Jim Acosta Righteously Nails Tucker Carlson as a &#8216;Human Manure Spreader&#8217;","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/5\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week President Biden succeeded in completing a mission that four presidents before him failed to accomplish. He finally ended America's involvement in the twenty year long war in Afghanistan. And in doing so he pulled off the largest personnel airlift in history, evacuating more than 120,000 people, including about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Bullshit Factory","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-bs-factory.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-bs-factory.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-bs-factory.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":50437,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=50437","url_meta":{"origin":31358,"position":2},"title":"Tucker Carlson Stirs Fears of Afghan Allies as &#8216;Invaders&#8217; Coming to &#8216;Your Neighborhood&#8217;","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/17\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The swiftness with which Fox News is contradicting itself on Afghanistan withdrawal matters is giving some observers whiplash. This is an occupational hazard when it comes to tracking Fox's views because they routinely change course whenever they stumble upon a new line of attack that they think might be more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News, Tucker Carlson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-snap.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-snap.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-snap.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":51186,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=51186","url_meta":{"origin":31358,"position":3},"title":"COVID Gets Even Redder, While Trump Worries More About Windmills (Not) Killing Birds","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/8\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"An exhaustive analysis of COVID-19 data by David Leonhardt of the New York Times has found that the efforts of right-wing media like Fox News to deceive their audience about the coronavirus have been remarkably effective. 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Their top program hosts routinely disseminate the positions of notorious hate groups (see Fox's Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson), who reciprocate by expressing their admiration and support for those hosts. On Thursday morning Fox News\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News, LeBron James, Maxine Waters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-lebron-waters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-lebron-waters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-lebron-waters.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31358"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31379,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31358\/revisions\/31379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}