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DONKEY: Target Faces Renewed Backlash For Racist Halloween Costume · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: It's time for donkey of the day. There's a bunch
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of donkeys out here. Call donkey of the day.
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  Speaker 2: It really caught me off guard. We live a life
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: where we bite our tongue based off who we may offend.
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  Speaker 2: We never would say anything.
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  Speaker 3: You are a donkey. That is why Charlemagne is here.
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  Speaker 1: Some donkey of the days just saw themselves. On The
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  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Sean.
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  Speaker 2: Who are you giving donkey of the day to today?
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  Speaker 1: Well, donkey of the day for Wednesday. Thank you, Taylor.
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  Speaker 2: Donkey of the day for Wednesday, August 26th goes to Target.
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  Speaker 1: Target, Target, Target, Target. What are we doing?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I have a question for the whole Target company.
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  Speaker 2: When is the last time you all actually hit what
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  Speaker 2: you were aiming for? Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Who in your front.
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  Speaker 2: Office keeps making the mistakes they're making? First, it was
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  Speaker 2: the 2023 Pride Month backlash. Then you scaled back your
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  Speaker 2: DEI programs. You ended your three-year racial equity action and
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  Speaker 2: change program. I think it was called the REACH program.
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  Speaker 2: That aimed to address racial disparities.
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  Speaker 1: You eliminated... specific.
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  Speaker 2: Numerical hiring and promotion goals for minority employees. All of
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  Speaker 2: that led to a boycott in his 2026 and target
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  Speaker 2: still seems to.
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  Speaker 1: Not be able to get it right.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. If you haven't heard target had to pull and apologize,
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  Speaker 2: a costume, a children's clown costume that some critics say
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  Speaker 2: looks a lot like black imagery from minstrel shows.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go to ABC seven for the report, please.
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  Speaker 4: Well, Target is pulling children's Halloween costumes after critics say
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  Speaker 4: it resembled blackface.
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  Speaker 2: The company is now apologizing and investigating how they say
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  Speaker 2: the costume made it onto store shelves.
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  Speaker 3: Here's ABC's Sophie Flay.
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  Speaker 4: This morning, Target is apologizing and removing a children's Halloween
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  Speaker 4: costume after it was widely criticized as racist. The images
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  Speaker 4: of the costume are being compared to racist caricatures evoking blackface.
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  Speaker 4: Target now acknowledges the costume should have never been for sale, saying,
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  Speaker 4: As a company, we got this wrong, and we are
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  Speaker 4: deeply sorry. We know this is especially hurtful for our
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  Speaker 4: black guests, team members, and partners. Removing the costume is
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  Speaker 4: an important first step, and we are looking closely at
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  Speaker 4: how this happened.
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  Speaker 1: We're cutting up cars today.
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  Speaker 4: It comes one year after the company's controversial move to
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  Speaker 4: roll back its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, which sparked
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  Speaker 4: protests and boycotts by shoppers.
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  Speaker 1: We need to hold larger corporations accountable.
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  Speaker 4: One Minneapolis-area business leader claims this new costume controversy is
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  Speaker 4: an indirect result of Target's DEI decision last year, saying,
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  Speaker 4: you rolled back diversity, so who's in the room now
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  Speaker 4: to say, hey, this is wrong?
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  Speaker 2: That's right. That is right. Now, see, anytime we start
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  Speaker 2: talking about racism in America, people immediately run to the extremes.
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  Speaker 1: OK, people say, see, Target is racist. They don't care
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  Speaker 1: about us.
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  Speaker 2: They intentionally made a racist costume.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I doubt it.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think they would intentionally make a racist costume.
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  Speaker 1: But to me.
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  Speaker 2: That's not the argument. The question I would ask Target
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  Speaker 2: is this. How does an image carrying this much American
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  Speaker 2: racial history make it through a modern corporation's design, merchandising, photography, marketing,
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  Speaker 2: and approval process without somebody recognizing what it is?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, sounds to me, Target, like y'all need some DEI.
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  Speaker 2: All right, this is a perfect example of what people
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  Speaker 2: misunderstand about diversity. Sometimes diversity in a room isn't about
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  Speaker 2: political correctness and checking boxes. It's simply about having somebody
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  Speaker 2: present who recognizes something the rest of the room clearly missed. OK,
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  Speaker 2: you wouldn't have to apologize after the fact, Target, if
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  Speaker 2: you had people in the room who can recognize these
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  Speaker 2: blind spots in the first place. OK, one thing I've
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  Speaker 2: learned about corporate America is a lot of them just
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  Speaker 2: don't have a clue. I mean, just culturally clueless. And
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  Speaker 2: sometimes something can be racially offensive without the person responsible
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  Speaker 2: waking up that morning.
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  Speaker 1: Saying, you know what? Let me disrespect these niggas today, okay?
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  Speaker 2: And that is what makes this Target situation interesting to me, okay?
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  Speaker 2: You got this children's Halloween costume called the Kids Glows.
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  Speaker 2: under blacklight circus clown. I don't even know what the
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  Speaker 2: hell that is, okay? It's modeled by a young black boy.
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  Speaker 2: He got the black gloves. He got the black face covering.
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  Speaker 2: He got the big exaggerated toothy grin just showing all
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  Speaker 2: 32 of his teeth. He got the little hat on.
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  Speaker 2: And he even, you know, got the I was trying
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  Speaker 2: to run from NASA but got frozen in place pose, okay?
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  Speaker 2: Hard to say that wasn't intentional, okay? Whoever designed this costume,
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  Speaker 2: whoever did this imagery had to be inspired by Sample, okay?
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  Speaker 2: They had to know the history of blackface fashion. and
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  Speaker 2: minstrel shows all right target pulled it they apologized they
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  Speaker 2: said it got it wrong they said the costume was
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  Speaker 2: offensive and it should have never been sold and that's
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  Speaker 2: the point but what i want to know is how
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  Speaker 2: did you get it this wrong this wasn't somebody selling
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  Speaker 2: costumes out the trunk of a nissan ultima this is
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  Speaker 2: target okay think about how many humans had to see
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  Speaker 2: this thing before it ended up online and in stores.
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  Speaker 2: As I said earlier, somebody designed it. Somebody had to
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  Speaker 2: approve the design. Somebody bought the inventory. Somebody had to
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  Speaker 2: select the model.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Somebody styled the photo shoot. Somebody took the pictures. You
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  Speaker 2: know how people take the pictures and tell you to
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  Speaker 2: make those poses. Somebody looked at those pictures. Somebody approved
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  Speaker 2: those pictures. Somebody uploaded those pictures to a website. And
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  Speaker 2: apparently nobody anywhere in that process said, Hey man, this
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  Speaker 2: is going to piss black people off. Nobody said, does
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  Speaker 2: this black child look like he's dressed as a minstrel character?
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  Speaker 2: That's the conversation, because in this era, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: racism survives because nobody in the room recognizes the reference.
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  Speaker 1: And that's why knowing history matters.
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  Speaker 2: OK, blackface wasn't simply white people painting their faces black
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  Speaker 2: for laughs. Minstrel shows spent. generations exaggerating black features and
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  Speaker 2: speech and movement and personality to portray black people in
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  Speaker 2: a certain way they wanted us to look stupid and
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  Speaker 2: lazy and ridiculous and just naturally inferior okay those images
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  Speaker 2: weren't harmless entertainment they helped teach america how to look
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  Speaker 2: at black people and how to treat black people and
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  Speaker 2: when an image has been used to degrade people for
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  Speaker 2: more than a century you don't get to erase all
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  Speaker 2: that history simply by calling the character a circus clown OK,
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  Speaker 2: that's the uncomfortable thing about symbols. You don't control everything
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  Speaker 2: a symbol means just because you didn't know its history.
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  Speaker 2: A swastika isn't suddenly just an interesting geometric design because
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  Speaker 2: somebody skipped history class.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 2: Now, back to the diversity aspect. Target, y'all need to
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  Speaker 2: know the Trump administration isn't going to be an office fellow. OK,
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  Speaker 2: it's time for y'all to have some balls and put
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  Speaker 2: diversity back on the front screen.
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  Speaker 3: All right.
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  Speaker 2: Diversity isn't about filling quotas. You can't just check the
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  Speaker 2: box and go home. You need diversity in the room
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  Speaker 2: for perspective. OK, you need people in the meeting saying,
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  Speaker 2: I know y'all don't see what I see, but let
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  Speaker 2: me explain why some people are going to see this
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  Speaker 2: differently and be offended by it. That's valuable, okay? And
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  Speaker 2: Target rolling back parts of its DEI commitments. I can't
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  Speaker 2: help but connect that to what happened here. Can I
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  Speaker 2: prove that eliminating DEI caused this costume to make it through? No,
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  Speaker 2: but I can say this is exactly the type of
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  Speaker 2: blind spot. diverse perspectives are supposed to help you catch.
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  Speaker 2: And I'll be the first to say, the purpose of
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  Speaker 2: diversity isn't to guarantee that nobody ever gets offended because
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  Speaker 2: diverse groups can miss stuff too. But the purpose of
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  Speaker 2: diversity is to reduce the chances that an organization like
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  Speaker 2: Target can look directly at something and collectively fail to
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  Speaker 2: see what millions of other people will recognize as soon
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  Speaker 2: as it hits the worldwide Negro net.
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  Speaker 1: Okay?
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  Speaker 2: Because the most dangerous ignorance isn't always what you don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not knowing.
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  Speaker 2: That you don't know now target says they're investigating i
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  Speaker 2: don't know it They need to investigate.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: But Target, I want to challenge you. I would like
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  Speaker 2: to challenge you, Target. Don't just find the employee, you know,
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  Speaker 2: who approved the costume and sacrificed them to social media. No.
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  Speaker 2: Study the process. Study the room. Study who gets heard
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  Speaker 2: in the room. Study whose perspective is missing from said room.
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  Speaker 2: Because if 10 people looked at something and all 10
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  Speaker 2: missed the same historical landmine, sometimes the problem isn't the
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  Speaker 2: 10 people. Sometimes the problem is is how you built
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  Speaker 2: the room. Please give Target the biggest ER. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know what y'all doing up there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 5: You're culturally incompetent, too, if you think they didn't do
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  Speaker 5: this issue on purpose.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I can't say that.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, no, they did.
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  Speaker 5: This was a scheme that a group of racist milk
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  Speaker 5: cricket crackerjacks sat in the room and they thought of.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't know that to be the case for sure.
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  Speaker 3: Like how?
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  Speaker 5: It's deliberate, yo. You just literally like went through the
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  Speaker 5: whole description of it. They know exactly where it came from.
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  Speaker 2: I can't say that.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I can say it.
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  Speaker 2: I can only say it the way I just said it.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm not liable. Can't just be out here calling
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  Speaker 2: people that.
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  Speaker 3: It's on purpose. That's a group of racist people.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not mad at your opinion.
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  Speaker 3: Like, that's crazy.
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if they did it on purpose.
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  Speaker 3: They've never seen anything else look like that.
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  Speaker 2: Like, what?
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  Speaker 3: You see it and you instantly, as a black person,
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  Speaker 3: you're like, oh, my God.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, 100%.
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  Speaker 2: Trauma triggering.
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  Speaker 3: Like, stop playing with me.
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  Speaker 2: That's why, for me, the question is, how did y'all
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  Speaker 2: get it this wrong?
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  Speaker 1: The whole process. How did you get this wrong? How
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  Speaker 1: did you miss that?
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  Speaker 2: How does an image carrying this much American racial history
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  Speaker 2: make it through a modern corporation's design?
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  Speaker 6: You think that's what the investigation is, though? It's like
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  Speaker 6: at every tier, where are we missing the black people?
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  Speaker 6: Let's bring some back.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, what is the investigation? What are we all doing
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  Speaker 3: in the room here?
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  Speaker 6: You said diversity isn't enough because sometimes, like, you know,
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  Speaker 6: people across the board can get it wrong. But I
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  Speaker 6: think you have to have people on the teams that
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  Speaker 6: are also empowered to feel like they can actually say.
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  Speaker 2: Something, too.
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  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you say something?
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  Speaker 2: If they give you a title, right, if they give
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  Speaker 2: you a title and say, this is your job, don't
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  Speaker 2: just sit there and let things go through.
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  Speaker 1: Your job is to speak up.
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  Speaker 3: That is great, but that does happen. There's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of us on these teams that are afraid because it's just. them. Using,
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  Speaker 3: you know, respect or value or whatever. Like, man, please.
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  Speaker 2: But that's why I said, that's why I said, even
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  Speaker 2: with the investigation, don't just investigate.
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  Speaker 1: Study the process. Study the room.
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  Speaker 2: Study who gets heard in the room and study whose
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  Speaker 2: perspective is missing from the room. Yeah. Because if not,
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  Speaker 2: then you get situations like this. Y'all want to open
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  Speaker 2: up the phone lines of that?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Because I'm so sick of, I'm sorry, we got
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  Speaker 3: it wrong.
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  Speaker 2: Let's open up the phone lines. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: 1-800-585-1051.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think Target was intentional with this costume? Do
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  Speaker 2: you think they intentionally wanted to piss.
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  Speaker 1: Black people off?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: I do.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's discuss.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 10:42
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