Widget render fails w/ esc_html calls

Widget render fails w/ esc_html calls.

New version of widget esc_html handling fails to render html.
Removing the newly added esc_html calls from before and after widget fixes the problem:

includes/class-widget.php

echo esc_html( $args[‘before_widget’] );
echo esc_html( $args[‘after_widget’] );

Correct:
<section id=”the_social_links-2″ class=”widget widget_the_social_links”><div class=”widget-wrap”>

Incorrect:
<section id="the_social_links-2" class="widget widget_the_social_links"><div class="widget-wrap">

Unclear why one needs to escape html for widget wrappers.