Ms. Rachel, known to her young followers as Ms. Rachel, is willing to meet a Black toddler and his parents after a video of a Connecticut library worker excluding the toddler from a puppet show went viral.
The children’s entertainer also donated $3,000 to an online fundraiser for the family, as reported by TheGrio on Tuesday. Darien Library has placed the employee on administrative leave pending an investigation by the law firm and the local NAACP.
“I’m so sorry about the racism he experienced. I messaged you. I’d be so honored to meet him and you two! And he can play with all of our puppets!” Ms. Rachel wrote in a comment on a later Facebook post by the toddler’s father, Micah Whitaker of West Haven.
Whitaker said the family and the entertainers have already gotten in touch. In an earlier comment as reported by Patch, Ms. Rachel offered to introduce the boy to Herbie, the puppet from her show.
Whitaker’s son, Messiah, who is only 17 months old, had been present at an outdoor storytime event arranged by the library at Darien Commons, a residential and retail complex, on Oct. 3, according to Patch and ABC7 New York.
The video, which Whitaker uploaded to TikTok on Oct. 6, is almost three minutes long. It depicts a woman using a green puppet to play with several children while Messiah stands next to his mother. The worker continues interacting with other children and finally packs up the puppet.
“As parents, this broke our hearts,” the caption says under the video. It says every child deserves to be noticed and included, and that the family wondered whether their son had been singled out.
The family claims the woman packed up the puppet once, then unpacked it for the other children as Messiah’s parents were about to leave, ABC7 New York reported. Whitaker told the station that the woman “did look at him at least once or twice,” and he expected she would eventually give the child some attention. He said it happened, and he found it heartbreaking.
As of Wednesday, the video had collected more than six million views on TikTok.
Kiera Parrott, Darien Library Director, said in a statement last week that the library takes the issue seriously and is dedicated to ensuring all patrons, especially the youngest, and their families feel welcome and safe. She also mentioned that the library hired an independent law firm to investigate the issue.
Parrott added that library officials spoke with Messiah’s parents on the day of the incident and afterward, when the video went viral, and that they have met with local NAACP leaders. She added that the library reported any threats it received regarding the library and the employee to local police, and she called on the community to respect the privacy of everyone involved.
The library remains in contact with the family and is “dedicated to working together to achieve healing and resolution,” Parrott said.
The employee, who is a white librarian, has not been officially identified yet.
The NAACP of Norwalk chapter is also conducting its own investigation. Mark McElveen of the chapter told ABC7 New York that the footage indicates the librarian could see the family, and that ignoring a small child in that way is shameful and alarming.
According to the NAACP, the librarian first claimed she did not notice Messiah standing beside her, and investigators are trying to get additional footage from the people who were also present. Neither investigation has presented any results yet.
Whitaker organized a GoFundMe on Oct. 7 to take Messiah and his family to Disney World. As of Tuesday night, it had raised $3,907 toward a $6,000 goal, and most donations came from Ms. Rachel, according to TheGrio.
“This fundraiser is not about asking for pity,” the campaign description says. It also says Whitaker wants to turn a painful day into a joyful memory for his son.
Ms. Rachel is a former preschool teacher who opened her own YouTube channel in 2019 to help her son overcome the speech delay problem. Her channel currently has more than 21 million subscribers, and her show has been streaming on Netflix since January 2025. Glamour magazine listed her as one of its Women of the Year in 2025.
