The last ethnic Halloween costume nobody apologizes for

Even in these days of hotter summers and disappearing traditions, a few fall rituals remain reassuringly predictable: back-to-school sales, postseason baseball, and the annual uproar over an offensive Halloween costume.

This year, it was Target’s turn.

For generations, poverty among rural Southern whites had been treated not simply as an economic condition but as evidence of something wrong with the people themselves.

A screenshot circulating on social media showed a child model wearing a “circus clown” getup from the retailer’s Hyde and EEK house brand. Critics said the face mask, miniature top hat, and gloves — not to mention the child’s pose — evoked blackface and 19th-century minstrelsy. Target quickly pulled it.

The Rev. Jamal Bryant, the Georgia pastor who spent the previous year leading a boycott of Target