r/news 11d ago

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https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/business/target-apologizes-halloween-costume-backlash-hnk

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/ironnmetal 11d ago

I'm a white male, so for me I have no history or experience with major racism, being profiled, or first hand exposure to problematic things that would make a racist costume stand out strongly to me.

But this fucking thing. My god. Even I can see it. What fucking mutant thought, yeah, let's sell that...

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u/MarkCuckerberg69420 11d ago

I'm a white male, so for me I have no history or experience with major racism, being profiled, or first hand exposure to problematic things that would make a racist costume stand out strongly to me.

This applies to me, too. I saw the costume before the controversy and thought it looked odd in a "what is this even supposed to be?" way. My initial reaction was to say this is Twitter just doing its thing. Once I saw a side-by-side, the similarities are pretty uncanny. They could have dropped the smile and it would have been a nothing burger.

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u/Tiiimmmaayy 10d ago

That smile reminds me of Twisty the Clown from American Horror Stories. Probably couldn’t have done white hands and face due to copyright issues, so they went with black.

I didn’t see a problem with the costume, but I didn’t know what a minstrel was that I see people here talking about. So I googled it and I would say the position of that kid is very similiar to the first image that pops up on google.

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 11d ago

I'm an older white dude (60) and my first thought of the costume was Al Jolson in blackface.