“From Peyton Place to Melrose Place, the P-word has always been code for Protected Private Property,” says Black Lives Matter spokesperson Natasha Trigger-Warning. “And what it’s protected from is the Street — as in, the diverse community that inhabits the urban world. They’re not even being subtle about it. Just look at this promotional art. Sesame Street has been reduced to a gravelly traffic island, situated outside the gated community of Sesame Place. It’s not somewhere you’d want to visit. For one thing, it’s overcrowded — and tellingly, its residents are the original cast members: gay couple Bert & Ernie, hallucinating depressive Big Bird, the obsessive compulsive Count, the unsheltered Oscar the Grouch, sad addict Cookie Monster, and the generally neurotic Grover. The kind of people that actually surrounded the show’s initial target audience: inner city kids who needed the TV to help them learn their numbers and letters. But all that’s over now, I guess. There’s a theme park to sell tickets for. Time to make the brand bland enough for the suburban crowd by taking the street out of Sesame Street.”