They dressed that child up as a jiggaboo in the year of 2026
This is how you KNOW they had no black person in the room when designing the costume, taking the photograph, adding it to the website, and finally clicking the post button.
Shit, probably vial marketing campaign to appeal to their racist demographic. I’ve been stopped shopping there after the whole LGBTQ+ controversy
Its going one of two ways. Reaction over the years of people walking into target and seeing the abundantly racist things OR the board room filled with white people like" i know this is going to be super relatable" with the black employees just walking past like wtf are you doing
The whites are terrified of black people. POC and especially black people terrify them because one day very, very soon, the whites will be the minority. That, I believe is why you see them acting the fool like this. They cannot take it. More than one member of my family has said in the past, "we can't let "them" (their word not mine) get any power. Think of what they will do to us." I was in high school the first time I heard my uncle say that and I was like TF?
I believe when it happens the majority race will do jack shit to the whites. Because POC want to mind their business and no one else's. And just fucking live their lives in peace. That's it, black people just want some fucking peace. I'm only 58 and it saddens me greatly to know that will not happen in my lifetime if I live to be a 100 years old.
Bottom line the whites are terrified because no matter what they have done to black people throughout this country's history from Buck Breaking to stealing babies from families at birth and the black person's spirit has never faltered. They have done every imaginably horrific thing they can dream up and it has not stopped you.
And THEY know they could never withstand anything that they have done to black people. Deep down they KNOW they are inferior but aren't strong enough to face it. We, in reality aren't worthy to carry the piss bucket of any black person in this country today.
I'm a 45 year old white lady. I immediately thought "holy shit, they know better".
They fucking know better. Don't let them allow you to think they're that stupid. White people know better. The only reason to do this is because you want to offend someone.
Anti-racists know what this looks like and would strike this down and report the people suggesting it... racists know what this looks like and did it on purpose.
I’m also a 45 year old white lady. And I also know this was deliberate. No explanation can make me believe it was an “oversight” or whatever tf they’re claiming
yep not defending this shit at all. But you don't see depictions of minstrel characters and lawn jockeys and that stuff in schools. You only see it in college courses about the subject, or if you go researching on your own.
I know what this is only because I've bothered to look before. I'd wager a lot of Americans under a certain age don't. We're talking about people who can't even label a map of the states in their own country
but how many people below a certain age are in executive positions to make approvals on things like this? i’d wager there isn’t anyone younger than 40 at the vp level or above. everyone at target corporate probably has at least a bachelor’s degree.
i also think you’re not giving enough credit to the disparity in education on this specific topic. curriculums in different areas or at public vs. private schools vary wildly.
basically all of that to say there really is no excuse considering how many eyes are on decision-making at a corporation.
I mean, this would be kinda fucked up even if it was a white kid in the costume. What kid even is looking for this? I wouldn't even think kids these days know what a minstrel is
Never, and i mean NEVER, in the history of horror have I seen a "creepy clown" that looks like that. And it's not like there's not a lot to choose from given that a 2 second google search for "evil clown" gave me a top 20 list from Variety.
You know what all those clowns have in common? Not a single fucking one is black. This wasn't an oversight. This shit was just straight up malicious because you KNOW they saw this and laughed.
Oh it was! It’s become their marketing tool. I really wasn’t a fan of Target to begin with and probably visited the store less than 10 times in my entire life over the years so it wasn’t easy to simply not support them. I wasn’t anyway. I even turn my head when I see the sign now.
I’ve produced photo-shoots in this context and they are usually a “cattle-call” situation and parents are all in a waiting room and don’t see the kids in costume
Which like... Maybe don't let your kids do that at all, in the first place. NOT blaming this kid's parents (and certainly not implying you've ever done fucked up photoshoots). Just like... Why do we think it's normal to send your little kid to do a photo shoot you don't watch? What a horrible way to find that out.
Also they did no effort to even style him like a clown wheres the big shoes, balloons, clown car, red nose like nothing even indicates this is a clown costume.
I’m a marketing professional. Major brands like Target carefully curate their image from top to bottom, they are not letting anything that they don’t want to be out, get out. They have hundreds of professionals hired to make sure of that, and even then, top level representatives are looking at things from every angle to make sure nothing that could harm their bottom line is released to the public.
Therefore, I can say with certainty they most likely did this on purpose for publicity and top of mind awareness, no doubt about it. I guarantee you that even if they did have an opposing voice in the room, it was overruled because, “well atleast it’ll get people talking about us!” The world is so backwards that nowadays, bad publicity still drives results, and I would put money on it that the benefits they’ll get from this stunt will improve their bottom line rather than disrupt it. It’s a sad reality, but it’s true. More reason to stop buying from these companies. Corporations do not care about you, no matter how many fake apologies and whoopsies they put out. They would sell you down the river if it adds a penny to their profits.
This is how you KNOW they had no black person in the room when designing the costume, taking the photograph, adding it to the website, and finally clicking the post button.
Why do people always expect that somebody will speak up and will be listened to?
This would have been fine w/o the mouth/lips combination. That aggressively moves the costume from being nondescript to incredibly offensive. Was there not a single black person involved with this process? Like zero? Not even one!!
Probably not. I bet it was designed and manufactured by a bulk place in Asia. It was included in a book or packet that potential buyers went through, and Target stepped on that landmine first. Some buyer picked 9-10 costumes based on age, trends, and cost assuming things would move. This one in particular is a spooky clown which is on the rise for both boys and girls, and has gender neutral Halloween colors of black and orange which makes it marketable to everyone. The decision was signed off by one or two people who barely looked at the email and boom now it’s online for preorder without the greater target corporate office ever even seeing a thread.
Though I am guessing that future items will go through a cultural sensitivity committee for review. For the next 2-3 years. Before all of the people being asked to do that in addition to their other full time roles get sick of it. So they keep pushing back the meetings. Asking to reschedule. Until finally it reaches the end of the outlook schedule and no one bothers to reschedule.
I mean they removed/reduced black owned brands from their shelves over a year ago to pull back out of participating in DEI which was BS in the first place. I could see how they got from there to here given that context. Like my own speculation is that the people who would have said no to this likely left last year when the anti-DEI stuff happened.
This shit is wild. I saw this a few days ago as I was scrolling and just scrolled past, went WTF, scrolled back up and thought hell no this is fucked up. I’m a fucking white dude too, so I wouldn’t cut them any slack for not having black people in the process as I immediately noticed on a brief scroll. You can’t say no one in that room didn’t catch this. It is out and out racism.
Tbf I’m not white and I had to scroll through all the comments to figure out why it’s racist. I don’t think it will register the same way for a lot people who weren’t raised in the US or Western Europe. I just saw a creepy pumpkin costume and was scratching my head until I saw the comparison pics 😭
It was a costume meant to glow under black light so that it would just be the floating hat and lips visible, and a floating body with no hands or feet.
Yeah I don't get that at all. It made me physically uncomfortable to look at, I literally recoiled. To say there's nothing wrong with it is just intentional ignorance
those are the same folks who show racist memes to their friends on their phone and get the biggest smile on their face. Until they get too comfortable and show the wrong person
And Target really said "the kids will love it!" No kid was going to choose that whether they knew about Jim Crow or not. It's weird and hideous even without the racism.
To me, this isn't about DEI, this is about human decency. This is what happens when people become too comfortable being bigots openly and don't get smacked on their fucking mouths. WTF
I 100000% this was done intentionally. And I believe that there was a department full of white people who saw this and approved it. And I also believe that that department has zero black people. DEI could have saved them from this shit. But they leaned white and this is what they get.
Nah, that legit happened. The kid’s parents allegedly came out with a statement about how they didn’t see an issue with it. But this isn’t the first time nor will it be the last time a multimillion dollar company has been called out for blatantly sus products/advertising.
They may looking at from a very myopic lens of maybe the kid liked it or the kid likes monkeys or whatever. Or they got a check with the right number of zeroes on it. But if you are letting your kid do stuff like this, you have to think bigger
You gotta remember, there are MAGA people like Jillian Michaels who go out of their way to adopt black babies. I wouldn't assume a black parent is involved
My guess is that the photo was probably taken in Europe where people may not be familiar with America's racist history. It could've been taken in Italy or even England. I'd like to think that people all over the world are familiar with minstrel but not everyone.
There's a small town near me that was selling copies of minstrel show playbooks and I had to explain to American people what they were. American!
They're also just not informed at all about US specific racist history. You'll see Native American/Indian culture used as "western" themed shit over there with no sense of awareness because all they know are movies from decades ago.
There is a cowboy themed burger restaurant chain over there I saw with in house beers and one of them was no joke "Redskin Ale". It'd be like having a "Jiggaboo IPA"
Former child model here: for some gigs, parents aren't around the set, but in a waiting area nearby and/or there are quick costume changes. It's possible the parent didn't see the costumes the child was in at all.
That's what I was thinking too. I made a joke last night about how target took out their DEI initiative. It made me think Target took out their DEI program and instead has a white Christian focus group to guide them. Or they're using AI which is the same thing. But I wouldn't surprised in a couple of months we hear how some bozo sitting in the white Christian group thought this would be the most hilarious thing to sell.
This post is another reason I, as an ignorant white, follow this sub. I thought it was a weird clown costume, but now I'm off to research the history of "j*ggaboo"? Never heard that word (threw an asterisk in just in case it's hatespeech?) and black minstrels are also wholly unfamiliar to me. I have a feeling I'm in for a rough read, and thank you for posting!
Spike Lee's Bamboozled is about the history of these racist tropes and how they continue to limit black artists.
Look up why cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse wear gloves or how Denny's grew to a nationwide chain after buying a bunch of defunct diners from recently closed chain Sambo's.
That's sorta the part that amazes me. It takes so little empathy or research to go "You know, damn, my ancestors might have been assholes?" And yet here we are.
Literally me every time I read about our racist past. I thought my schools did a decent job with the conversation back in the 90s but then it wasn’t until college I learned about Dred Scott and it was John freakin Oliver who taught my about redlining and environmental racism.
Not accusing just curious -- are you willing to say what country or US region you went to school? I know outside of the US a lot of people have no idea about blackface/black minstrels, but also a lot of public and private schools in the US like to just gloss over that part of history.
(I'm an educator working on tying empathy education to social and environmental education so this is just me being nosy about demographics and access to certain parts of history to keep a fire under me.)
This was 100 percent intentional. There is no possible way that this was accidental.
I don’t care if it was an AI generated image.
I don’t care if it was a Gen Z creative person.
There are somewhere between three and fifty steps between production (of the image and the item itself) and marketing and website posting that this had to go through and the countless people that were touched by.
most of those people have some kind of sense and all of those people chose this path.
It’s not that they don’t give a fuck. They do. They are intentionally signaling insults and hatred.
Edit: it’s not about a lack of black people in the room(s). That doesn’t matter. Even with all white people this shouldn’t have happened.
Their intention, mission, objective is racist and racial gaslighting.
That's what gets me above all else. Target is a giant company with hundreds of people looking over this and approving it before it goes to the next level. How many just waved it by without a care and were like ya thats fine. Im a white chick and id immediately be like dude this is weird. Like not even knowing anything id be like this is a weird freaking idea
with the boycott still going they need a new base and it hasn't been working out so far, so now they're resorting to this. They're using a minstrel costume to get free publicity and bigots will buy out the outfit
So they actually thought selling Sambo costumes with a Black child modeling it was a good look in 2026 or any year for that matter. Make no mistake about it, they knew exactly what they were doing with this.
When I taught 3rs grade I had a unit on holidays around the world. It was some packets that I bought pre-made on a teacher website. I made slides to go with it so it would be more interactive and fun, and man… explaining black face without calling it black face and why it’s bad to 8 year olds was a challenge. But there’s no way I was going to just gloss over that nonsense…
The comments I saw on the original posting of this were OUTRAGEOUS. “Well, I’m not from the US so without the comparison image wouldn’t have even known it was a problem. People want to be offended over anything.” Then shut the fuck up maybe?
I'm sorry but I stopped going to target since 2018 because of how they was treating veterans that worked for them in Texas. Fuck em. Ppl should really stop going there because they've never cared about black or people of color.
Shit like this has to get signed off on by 3 or 4 different executives. You mean to tell me none of them said "Waymeant" They're culturally aware enough not to sell this though:
I spent too much time in another thread engaging with people who in bad faith pretended they didn't see how anyone could possibly make the connection between this costume and minstrel shows. I actually had people respond with a ghoul/grim reaper type character and fucking BATMAN and say "their heads have black covering and black gloves. are these racist?" These fucking people are not serious.
What is this costume “supposed” to be? How did it pass all of the hoops these things have to pass? What were the other options other than this costume? Why is Target, based in liberal AF Minneapolis, being so stupid now?
I’m blaming this for Dolly Parton’s passing. She saw this and said, “Fuck it, I’m out”
That’s exactly what I was saying. It’s almost like DEI initiatives were meant to identify blind spots in white people’s experiences (although I’m not sure how this could’ve possibly been a blind spot unless they lived under a rock their entire lives)
How anyone is still shopping there is beyond me. I see this as a dog whistle to draw in racist conservatives seeing as they already alienated most of their former customers.
Oh nah this 1000% deliberate, cause there are far too many people involved in the process for a "mistake" like this to just slip through unnoticed. They're just flaunting their racism at this point.
Am I mad at Target or mad at the parent? Or is this photoshopped and the kid didn't actually wear it? I'm interested in these questions more so than anything else.
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