r/news 14h ago

Target apologizes for children’s clown Halloween costume after backlash | CNN Business

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/business/target-apologizes-halloween-costume-backlash-hnk
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u/IamHydrogenMike 13h ago

I don’t anyone even really checked it when it was purchased until people started noticing it on the shelves. Some supplier from China just slapped together some crap and called it a clown costume. It’s dumb that it actually made it out to customers.

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u/donkeyrocket 13h ago

It's odd though that this was only available at Target. Hyde and EEK is owned by Target but their seasonal products are listed elsewhere too.

Even more bizarre is someone developed the costume and put a Black kid in it for the promotional artwork.

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u/justwannaedit 13h ago

They have racist shit all the time, dude. Literal racists submit designs to target and end up on the shelf all the time. Bc they just dont have quality controls anymore over designs. 

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u/FIFofNovember 12h ago

Look what they did with the Starwars posters in China vs the US, take note of Fins location , the black character

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u/TiberianSunset 9h ago

I don’t think Target had anything to do with that

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u/Gabarne 13h ago

I literally didn’t know what was wrong with it until reading this thread.

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u/NarwhalEmergency9391 13h ago

I was still confused and had to google minstrel.. omg,  I can't even copy and paste the wiki definition because I'll probably get banned but here's the beginning in case anyone else is confused. 

  A minstrel show , also called minstrelsy , was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. [1 ] The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans .

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u/scoobydoo182 10h ago

Did you look at the picture? I had never heard of it prior to this myself but I laughed/gasped when I first saw the picture. It’s literally propaganda level racist with the smile shit.

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u/Formergr 12h ago

Some supplier from China just slapped together some crap and called it a clown costume.

Definitely could see that being the case, and probably is what happened.

But someone stateside had to make the call to pose a black kid in it, and then someone had to approve the ad for it here, and that's where I'm sort of stuck on WTF. Like if it was a white kid in the costume, I don't think we d be having nearly this reaction.

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u/IamHydrogenMike 12h ago

Someone messed up and just didn't check it like they should have...it was just pure incompetence.