Target apologized on Monday and said it had stopped selling a children’s Halloween costume after facing widespread criticism that the design evoked racist stereotypes of Black people.
The product listing on Target’s website, which appears to have been deleted, showed a circus clown costume in orange and black, with accessories including gloves, a top hat and a mask shaped like a grinning mouth with large teeth.
Critics said that these features, in addition to a promotional image that appeared to show a Black child modeling the costume, mirrored caricatures from Jim Crow-era minstrel shows.
Target, the Minneapolis-based big box retailer with around 2,000 U.S. stores, said in a statement that it had stopped selling the costume and would look into how it had gone on sale.
“As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry,” it said.
“The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment,” the statement continued, adding: “We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners.”
Minstrel shows were a form of 19th-century American theater built around caricatures of Black people and culture. Performers, who were usually white, wore blackface and enacted these caricatures for predominantly white audiences.
Dong-hwan Lee, a professor at the Gyeongin National University of Education in South Korea who specializes in American culture and has written on minstrel shows, said that selling such a product “reduces Black individuals to contemptible, clownish figures.”
Shomane Touré, the founder of Afrocentric Films Collaborative, a group based in Oakland, Calif., that promotes Black culture, said that Target seemed to have neglected to consider how the product was presented.
“Target appears to have overlooked these historical implications by choosing to market a costume worn by a Black child in a manner that can be interpreted as reinforcing a longstanding racial stereotype,” Mr. Touré said in an emailed statement.
Target did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Other major brands have dropped products criticized as racist. During Black History Month in 2019, Gucci apologized and pulled a sweater that had an opening for the mouth with bright red lips that were widely denounced as evoking blackface.
Target, which has struggled financially while losing ground to rival Walmart, was at the center of controversy over its Pride Month marketing campaign in 2023. That campaign drew anger from some on the political right, including some customers who demonstrated confrontational behavior in stores, the company said. After Target removed some merchandise in response, some L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy groups criticized Target for appearing to cave to pressure.
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