Children’s YouTube personality Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, defended her political activism this week by arguing that Mister Rogers himself was far more political than people remember.
Speaking to Kareem Rahma on his show “SubwayTakes,” Ms. Rachel said criticism that she should stick to entertaining children rather than weighing in on politics misreads the history of children’s television.
“Mr. Rogers was political,” she said.
She pointed to a 1969 episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” in which Fred Rogers invited Officer Clemmons, a Black character, to cool off with him in a small wading pool — at a time when some public pools still barred Black swimmers. Rahma called the scene “revolutionary.”
“I’ve read that some people saw it and in their family it wasn’t okay to share a pool, and they were like, ‘Oh Mr. Rogers is doing it. It’s okay for our family now.’ And so it did make a difference,” Ms. Rachel said. “And actually, people sometimes say to me, ‘Ms. Rachel should be like Mister Rogers and not be political.’ And actually, he was political so much on the show. I think maybe they didn’t watch it or maybe weren’t paying attention because he did so many things.”
She also cited a 1983 storyline in which Rogers used the show’s make-believe kingdom to criticize the nuclear arms race. “He had King Friday building bombs because he thought the other neighborhood, Southwood, was building bombs, so he wanted to have 100 million and one bomb parts for his bombs,” she said. “And then he was like, ‘Now we don’t have money for the music program because you spent it all on bombs.’ Queen Sarah, the wife, was like, ‘Why did you spend the tax money on bombs? We should have spent it on these other awesome things.'”
Ms. Rachel further noted that Rogers testified before the Senate against a proposed $10 million cut to public broadcasting funding under President Nixon. “He just shared from his heart how much care goes into his show and how he helps children manage, and feelings are manageable and mentionable, and it was huge,” she said. “And so he went to Senate and was like, ‘No, government, don’t cut funding to PBS.’ Like, how political is that?”
A Different View
Author and psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert offered a rebuttal in a statement to Fox News Digital, acknowledging the power of the 1969 pool scene while drawing a distinction between Rogers’ approach and Ms. Rachel’s.
“Fred Rogers addressed serious social issues. His 1969 pool scene with Officer Clemmons was a powerful statement about racial equality. But there’s a difference between quietly modeling human dignity and turning your enormous platform with children and parents into a vehicle for your positions on today’s political controversies,” Alpert said.
Alpert argued that Rogers let his actions speak for themselves rather than stating explicit political positions. “Rogers didn’t need to tell his audience, ‘Here is the correct political position.’ He showed a Black neighbor that he was welcome in his pool. The lesson was contained in the act itself,” he said. “Ms. Rachel is far more explicit about telling the public what she believes about Gaza, immigration and other politically charged issues. I think invoking Mister Rogers gives her a convenient defense: If Mister Rogers was political, then criticism of her activism can be dismissed as hypocrisy. But that’s a false equivalence.”
He added that Rogers was influential “precisely because he didn’t beat people over the head with his politics,” trusting audiences to draw their own lessons rather than issuing demands. Fred Rogers Productions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Immigration Detention
Elsewhere in the interview, Ms. Rachel addressed the treatment of children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, saying she has spoken directly with affected families.
“No child should be in immigration detention center ever. I’ve talked with some children, and the harm is so obvious,” she said.
She described allegations of medical neglect, including a case involving a girl whose respiratory illness went untreated. “There was a girl they neglected that she had this respiratory stuff, and when they took her to the ICU, she had COVID, RSV. Her oxygen was like 52. So the medical neglect is abuse in there,” she said, adding that some pediatricians she spoke with described the conditions as torture. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
