Target screams ‘SORRY!’ over kids’ ‘blackface’ costume — and DEI gets dragged back from the dead

BS BULLETIN:

Target pulled a children’s clown costume after critics compared its imagery to blackface and minstrel shows.
The retailer says the costume was “offensive” and apologized specifically to Black customers and employees.
Critics immediately blamed Target’s DEI rollback for letting it happen.

Target has discovered something even scarier than Halloween.

Another boycott.

The retail giant has pulled a children’s clown costume after critics said its black gloves, mask and exaggerated toothy grin evoked racist blackface and minstrel-show imagery. The item, sold under Target’s Hyde and EEK! Boutique brand, was called the “Kids’ Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume.”

Target pulls costume

And Target didn’t exactly respond with a corporate shrug. “As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry,” the company said Monday. “The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale.”

Target continued: “We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners.”

Then came the promise of an internal corporate autopsy. “Removing the costume is an important first step, and the company is looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”

And THAT question — how did this happen? — has become almost as big as the costume itself.

Because Target has spent the last year being hammered from the left for rolling back some of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

So guess what immediately got blamed? The absence of DEI.

Minneapolis-area businesswoman Sheletta Brundidge summed up that argument rather efficiently, asking who remained “in the room” to flag something like this after Target rolled back diversity efforts. Reuters reports that critics are explicitly connecting the product controversy to those DEI changes.

And social media was considerably less diplomatic.

One critic responded to Target’s apology by declaring that the company had lost Black voices who were previously “in the room” and vowed to continue boycotting until there was “REAL CHANGE.”

Another accused Target of racism for disabling replies to its statement.

Another summed up the entire DEI argument in one sentence: “if only they had staff that could’ve prevented this”

And another declared: “Target keeps getting it wrong because they refuse to include Black people in leadership positions. Told you guys, anti-DEI is racism.”

Those reactions weren’t isolated. Online discussion quickly became a referendum on whether Target’s DEI retreat had left the company without enough people willing or able to spot potentially offensive imagery before merchandise reached customers.

There is, however, an obvious question hiding underneath all of this: Do we really know that DEI was the reason this costume got approved?

No.

Target hasn’t publicly identified who designed it, who approved it or whether anyone involved in that process was affected by its DEI changes. Reuters reports that the company declined to say who approved the costume.

So “Target rolled back DEI, therefore this costume happened” may make for a satisfying social-media argument.

It isn’t yet an established fact.

What IS established is that Target desperately doesn’t need another cultural controversy.

The retailer has spent years learning how quickly a fight over merchandise can turn into a fight over the entire Target brand. Its 2023 Pride collection generated a major backlash, while the company’s later DEI rollback produced another boycott — this time from the opposite political direction.

Now Target is trying to get its footing under new CEO Michael Fiddelke, and analysts are warning that yet another reputational mess could interfere with that recovery.

“As Target begins to gain traction in repairing its brand reputation, this is exactly the kind of stuff they want to avoid,” Morningstar analyst Brett Husslein told CNN, according to Reuters’ reporting on the controversy. He warned that another hit to the company’s reputation could translate into additional lost market share.

And there you have the great Target dilemma. First the company gets hammered by conservatives. Then it retreats from DEI and gets hammered by progressives.

Now a Halloween clown costume appears and suddenly we’re conducting a national symposium on minstrel shows, corporate diversity and who was sitting in the conference room when somebody approved the thing.

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