Hath Not an Elmo Constitutional Rights?
Elmo haters — i.e. any one who has parented a 3 year old child — were vindicated on Monday, when a man dressed as Elmo was taken away from Central Park by police in an ambulance after making an anti-Semitic rant outside the Central Park Zoo.
The man, as yet unidentified, is apparently a recidivist racist who has donned the Elmo costume previously to spew anti-Semitic vitriol. In one rant, captured on video and posted on YouTube by witnesses, the not-so-cuddly creature implored passers-by to read Henry Ford’s “The International Jew” (no one ever said Elmo was ill-read) saying that “if you start your business in this city, Jews will harass you.” He also said that he was not making money because “the Jewish costume company is harassing me.”
According to some reports, parents complained that Elmo was making their children uncomfortable – children who perhaps expected hugs, rather than hate, from someone disguised as their favorite Sesame Street character – and that was why the New York Police Department responded, taking ‘Elmo’ to a hospital in an ambulance.
Some reports say that ‘Elmo’ was taken to Metropolitan Hospital for psychological evaluation, and is emotionally disturbed. While most reports acknowledged that Elmo was not arrested, the question of whether or not Elmo was within his rights to speak his mind – disturbed or not – in the park seems not to have been raised by anyone.
Does freedom of speech, one has to wonder, not apply to disturbed people, or anti-Semitic wolves in Elmo’s clothing? Yes, the utter incongruity of rants from someone in an Elmo costume are perhaps more disturbing than they might be otherwise. But hath not an Elmo Constitutional rights?
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
