As a parent who has purchased my share of scary Halloween costumes, I was particularly disturbed by the controversy now engulfing Target.

The retailer is being berated on social media for a gaffe (if we are to believe it was a gross misjudgment) that many feel harks back to blackface.

Target quickly removed the contents of a webpage featuring a Black boy in a Halloween clown costume resembling a minstrel caricature.

The item was listed under Target’s in-house Hyde & EEK! Boutique brand as the “Kids’ Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume.”

In the photo, the boy is wearing a matching top and pants with orange-and-black zigzag stripes (think jack-o’-lantern pattern), black gloves and a hood attachment with a tiny top hat. Instead of a traditional painted clown’s face, the costume featured a mask with shockingly oversize teeth and a grinning smile.

The kid looked like a miniature Sambo-style caricature, a trope that still makes me mad. It was part of a degrading history that should stay in the past, one where Black people were depicted as baboonish clowns. To understand today’s outrage, you have to know how these characters were used to justify treating Black Americans as second-class citizens.

Blackface imagery was prominent during the Jim Crow era and featured on postcards, cookie jars and other retail items that showed exaggerated dark faces with bright red or white grinning lips. There were “pickaninny” characters showing Black children with unkempt clothes and hair.Who in the world would have approved that costume? How did it ever make it into the retailer’s offerings?

“As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry,” Target said in a statement in response to my inquiry. “The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale. We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members, and partners. 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.”

Despite the mea culpa, the backlash has been stinging, as it should be.

Many people have pointed out that the child model is positioned with his body and hands in a way similar to the cover illustration of an early 19th-century piece of sheet music titled “Mr. T. Rice as the Original Jim Crow.” Rice was Thomas D. Rice, a White man who performed in blackface.

These blackface acts — performed first by White actors and later by Black ones — were supposed to be comic relief, but there was nothing humorous about entertainment used to mock millions of disenfranchised Black Americans being denied their civil and economic rights.

I do need to note that the Black actors who ended up performing such roles faced a painful paradox. To get work, they had to play the “step-and-fetch-it” characters. For many, the choice was a matter of economic survival.

“Target put a Black child in a snaggletooth grin and a minstrel mask, priced it at $25, and called it a Halloween costume,” one user wrote on Threads. “Now here’s the apology: ‘we got this wrong.’ Nah yo, you didn’t get it wrong. Blackface has been American entertainment for 150 years, and this passed every desk on the way to the shelf. That’s not a slip or a mistake, that’s a reflex.”

The Instagram account for the Afrocentric Films Collaborative, which says it promotes positive stories and images about Black culture and the African Diaspora, asked: “We still shopping at Target?”

For context, it always comes down to the money — or more specifically, the systemic, institutionalized racial discrimination that Black Americans have experienced.

As I wrote in my award-winning series on race and money, “Sincerely, Michelle,” Jim Crow was never a laughing matter.

When the institution of slavery ended, it was replaced by officially sanctioned economic oppression. What came next were local and federal laws that kept Black Americans from equal access to jobs that could have elevated their income enough to allow them to build generational wealth.

“The legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and the New Deal — as well as the limited funding and scope of anti-discrimination agencies — are some of the biggest contributors to inequality in America,” says a 2019 report by the Center for American Progress. “Together, these policy decisions concentrated workers of color in chronically undervalued occupations, institutionalized racial disparities in wages and benefits, and perpetuated employment discrimination. As a result, stark and persistent racial disparities exist in jobs, wages, benefits, and almost every other measure of economic well-being.”

Folks are wondering whether this costume debacle slipped through because of Target’s pullback on its diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The retailer pointed out in its 10-K SEC filing for the fiscal year that ended in January 2026 that such changes carried a business risk.

“In 2025, we announced that we modified and concluded certain of our initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which resulted in adverse reactions from some of our shareholders, guests, team members, and others, as well as consumer boycotts organized throughout 2025,” according to the filing.

The company added that being more inclusive could “result in negative reactions” from “governmental entities.” At the same time, Target also said it was concerned that moving away from DEI policies could lead to negative publicity.

I get it. Target is trying to insulate itself from an administration that has attacked DEI policies, while serving a diverse customer base crucial to its bottom line.

But this misstep was wholly avoidable.

You can’t find the costume image on Target’s site. Search, and you find this: “We’re sorry! This page is currently unavailable. Please try again later.”

That last line says far more than the retailer realized.

Yes, try again. Do better.

Michelle Singletary is a columnist for the Washington Post.