Walmart’s Arab-Hating Halloween

The challenges of marketing in a diverse society and the need for greater awareness and mindfulness of how different groups will perceive things, in this case Halloween costumes (WalMart has subsequently stated it will withdraw a number of these costumes):

Imran Siddiqi had a pretty simple request for WalMart.

“One of my [extended] family lost nine of their family members to the bombing of Gaza last year—four of their children,” said Siddiqi, who is the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Arizona.

Is it so hard, he wondered, for WalMart to not carry a child’s Halloween costume of an Israeli Defense Forces soldier—replica costume, toy uzi and all?

The answer, apparently, is yes. The costume is still on sale on WalMart.com.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to sell the costume of any given regime out there,” he said. “I wouldn’t support a kids Egyptian Army uniform or Saudi Arabian Army uniform. Plus, there’s the gun.”

When members of the Palestinian community took to WalMart’s Twitter and Facebook in an effort to get the retailer to stop selling the item, some users pointed out that WalMart’s official description is considerably different than that of its vendor’s. AnyTimeCostumes.com, which sells the costume, describes the outfit like this:

“The Israeli Soldier Child Costume is a great ensemble for your little one this Halloween if they want to dress as a national hero! The all-inclusive outfit includes all of the pieces that your son needs to pull of [sic] this look… The outfit is also a great prop for playtime so that he can dress up and let his imagination run wild.”

Underneath the costume on the WalMart.com, it reads, “The Israeli Soldier Costume for Kids includes product comes complete with: shirt, pants, belt and hat. When Halloween time rolls around, make this item part of your child’s complete ensemble.”

In other words, WalMart had already vetted—and changed the description for—this costume.

Meanwhile, until Tuesday morning, WalMart was still selling over-the-top caricature costumes of Middle Easterners—from a comically large, crooked prosthetic “Sheik Fagin nose” to a “Desert Prince headpiece,” replete with an exaggerated, bushy mustache. (WalMart later pulled the faux nose item from its website, but a cached version of the item can be viewed here.)

The caricatures all sit in stark contrast to WalMart’s website to the “national hero” Israeli outfit—a note-for-note, near-standard issue reproduction of an IDF soldier’s outfit.

At this point, Siddiqi says, he’s simply disappointed in it all.

Source: Walmart’s Arab-Hating Halloween – The Daily Beast