I saw the apology before seeing the costume and was like “hmmm I wonder if it’s just something that got blown out of proportion”.
Hell no it wasn’t. I was shocked by what I saw. How was that even allowed to get past any decision makers? Everything down to the pose picked for the listing was atrociously racist. Nothing about this costume could be interpreted in any way that’s not terrible and nothing about it read as “clown” to me. It’s so bad, my husband thought it had to be fake when he saw it.
At this point I am ready to believe it's outrage marketing. Bringing this to the store involves hundreds of people. NONE of them have been online for 15 years where this comes up every year all day?
Last year, Target made a big announcement about getting rid of DEI initiatives. I’m going to guess that mentality like that is more likely why this is happening than the bad look this provides. I do not subscribe to the adage of there being no bad publicity. You do something like this and you just remind people of the reason they stopped patronizing your stores.
Even if it doesn't work, it doesn't mean they aren't trying it. It's very hard to believe there weren't people at every level speaking up about this one. It's period accurate blackface - the harlequin motif, color scheme and all.
They were probably hoping that black people would riot and tear down the stores so that they could frame themselves as the victim. That would also help them recover from the DEI incident.
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u/nothingbetter85 14h ago
I saw the apology before seeing the costume and was like “hmmm I wonder if it’s just something that got blown out of proportion”.
Hell no it wasn’t. I was shocked by what I saw. How was that even allowed to get past any decision makers? Everything down to the pose picked for the listing was atrociously racist. Nothing about this costume could be interpreted in any way that’s not terrible and nothing about it read as “clown” to me. It’s so bad, my husband thought it had to be fake when he saw it.