It is remarkable the things you learn while searching for ethics topics that have nothing to do with President Trump.
For example, I had never heard of Ms. Rachel, perhaps because my ‘kid’ is 31. Ms. Rachel is the professional moniker of educator, YouTuber, and singer-songwriter Rachel Accurso. She created the YouTube series “Ms. Rachel” (originally known as “Songs for Littles”), a children’s music series that focuses on language development for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
That’s nice! Unfortunately, she can’t resist exposing the fact on social media that she hates Jews . Last week, she “liked” a post by one of her followers on Instagram that said “Free America from the Jews.” Oh-oh. Then she posted a video in which she wept pitifully and claimed that she had meant to delete the thing but inadvertently “loved” it.
Oh. Well, anyone can make a mistake, though I don’t see how someone could make that one. The problem is that this kiddie educator has been ranting on social media about Israel “genocide” in Gaza for quite a while now. Earlier, she posted on Instagram, ‘”Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Iran.” Last year she filmed a ‘Letter of the Day’ video with Palestinian journalist, Motaz Azaiza. Azaiza has praised Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, in which infants and children were massacred among other victims. He once posted online, “May God curse the Jews themselves.”
Call me judgmental, but hosting an anti-Semite like this guy seems like an ominous sign for a child educator. Yet Ms. Rachel appears to be uncancellable. Over at “Unspiked,” Brendan O’Neill speculates why. He writes in part,
“The Damocles sword of cancellation dangles precariously over all of us for such trifling speechcrimes as wondering if the Koran is bollocks (Islamophobia) or thinking immigration should be curtailed (racism). And yet you can openly rub shoulders with anti-Semitic people or anti-Semitic posts and the cancellers will look the other way.
“Be honest: what fate would befall a kids’ entertainer if they hosted on their show a man who had once said ‘Fuck all black people’? And if they then liked a post on Instagram that said ‘Get all blacks out of America’? We know exactly what would happen. They would be savagely cancelled. The only time we’d ever see them again would be in a Netflix documentary 20 years hence about the much-loved kids’ clown who lost it all by chumming about with racist scum.
“…The exact opposite has happened with Ms Rachel. She may have exposed the kids who follow her to a man who once said ‘Curse the Jews’, and she may have liked a post calling for the mass expulsion of Jews from the US, but she will survive. And thrive. Cancel culture will lay not one finger on her. And we all know why: because Jews enjoy none of the protections of ‘political correctness’. Jews have not been granted access to the kingdom of liberal concern. Offending Jews is seen as a lesser crime than offending any other group. Ms Rachel will suffer no consequences so long as her blunders only touch on the lives and feelings of Jews.
“The real problem is not Ms Rachel, who’s fundamentally just another celeb building a virtuous self-image from the rubble of Gaza. It’s the politics of identity. It’s that ideology’s ruthless demotion of Jews to the bottom of the league of identities. Scuff a page of the Koran and you’ll be had up for Islamophobia. Film a kids’ video with a man who said ‘Curse the Jews’ and you’re grand. There it is: the merciless neo-racialism of the woke era….”
This is another Cognitive Dissonance Scale issue at heart. Maybe a competent online children’s educator can still be regarded as effective and trustworthy as long as she keeps her vile political and social views out of her videos, songs and books. On the other hand, as Captain Hook would say, I’d rather have someone who isn’t a lying anti-Semite entertaining my children if I have a choice.
You?
Ethics Alarms 
There is such a thing as antisemitism. Ms Rachel cannot be put in that category. The Stop Antisemitism org lists 10 supposed 2025 antisemites. Stew Peters is the only “true” antisemite on that list IMO. Ms Rachel is not and it is really cynical that she is depicted in that way.
If Donald Trump or J.D. Vance held the same attitudes towards Jews and did the same things Miss Rachel did, would they be widely denounced as antisemites?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly1cPYSqgR4
What did Ms. Rachel do?
“Romper Room” and “Captain Kangeroo” from my own childhood, as well as “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and even “Barney the Dinosaur” from my kids’ childhood, were all apolitical and non-controversial. (“Barney the Dinosaur” was so sappy it drove me nuts as a young mom, but that’s another story.) I don’t have any grandkids yet, but if I did, I’d be helping their parents find alternative children’s programming. Children’s TV shows are supposed to have broad appeal, especially within the culture of the country they are created in, and therefore their hosts need to keep their opinions on “grown-up issues” to themselves.
Two in one week, wow. Maybe I finally have free time again.
In 2022 I was in Ukraine and spent most of my spare time helping out a non-profit while there and back in the states.
2023 and 2024 was spent working on a project truck, prepping for our first baby, and finding the right real estate project for a house
2025 was spent working on the worst house in the best neighborhood. It took 6 months of near daily work but we’re moved in now.
My daughter loves Mrs. Rachel. She is probably the best baby and toddler education channel on Youtube, which for many families like ours is the now the de facto cable service. That’s why she’s so popular – there really isn’t a channel of equivalent quality on the main platform that has replaced cable for many families. Even so, we really try to limit screen time and we were already phasing out Mrs Rachel. My wife finds her voice grating after too long.
It’s pretty clear from her videos that’s she’s liberal – her supporting cast sometimes reminds me of the DEI dwarves that they were going to use for the panned live-action Snow White reboot before they were shamed out of it for their obnoxious and blind inclusivity. It’s also obvious that she lives in New York. That Mos Eisley of a city features heavily in many of her videos.
Aside form the occasional chuckle or comment when a liberal stereotype popped up, I can’t say that we minded all that much. The actual content itself is pretty standard non-political edutainment for babies and toddlers. Even so, she makes money from people viewing her content and I don’t think I want to be one of the people helping her make that money.
The content she produces, in my mind, is just not as artistically important as other questionable creators. Kanye, Michael Jackson, Dalí, Polanski, etc. All people that I wouldnt want to be friends with, but the artistic products of their strange and/or twisted minds are things that I believe have positively advanced the culture so I don’t feel gross about paying them directly or indirectly for that contribution. Maybe that’s a form utilitarian argument or the kings pass, or maybe art of sufficient worth really can be separated from the artist and valued on it’s own. Mrs Racehl aint that though, and I’d rather patronize some slightly lesser but ultimately interchangeable creator to avoid putting money into the pocket of a hateful person.
I also don’t like the idea of my daughter developing fond memories of Mrs Racehl and then, down the line, suffering from some form of halo effect or cognitive dissonance that I’d have to take care to dismantle.
As a somewhat related side note, for years I’ve kept a short mental rolodex of what I think your ethical blind spots are. The subject of children is ranked high on that short list and over the years, from hints and bread crumbs, I think I’ve developed a grasp of why. We’ve often disagreed on the subject, but that now that I have a baby of my own, I’m starting to doubt that you have blind spot after all. I missed you and Ethics Alarm too.