Overview
- Target removed the “Kids’ Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown” costume and issued an apology saying the item was offensive and should never have been sold, a statement the company released on Monday.
- The product’s marketing image showed a Black child in an orange-and-black outfit with black gloves and a dark face covering printed with an exaggerated smiling mouth, which social media users compared to Jim Crow–era blackface and minstrel caricatures.
- Target confirmed the costume was manufactured by its own Hyde & EEK! Boutique seasonal brand and said it is reviewing internal approval processes to determine what went wrong.
- Critics and some community leaders tied the approval to the company’s 2025 rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, saying fewer diverse reviewers may have contributed to the error.
- The episode has renewed calls for concrete policy changes at the retailer and raised reputational risk for Target as it pursues a business turnaround; historically, blackface and minstrel imagery are widely viewed as demeaning caricatures of Black people, which explains the rapid public reaction.