Walmart has discontinued the sale of two Halloween costumes after receiving complaints from bloggers that the costumes were offensive.
The costumes — an oversize prosthetic hooked nose sold as the “Sheik Fagan Nose” and an Israeli military uniform intended for small children — were marked as anti-Arab by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which said on Twitter that it broached the matter with the retailer, the New York Times reports. By Tuesday night, the company had removed the costumes from its online store.
@nmuaddi Thanks for forwarding. We're contacting Walmart's Global Diversity and Inclusion program re these racist anti-Arab costumes.
Both, however, remain available via Amazon, which is selling the nose as the “Sultan Nose Latex Appliance.” A year ago, the rapper Macklemore wore the prosthetic onstage — along with a black wig and beard — when performing his hit “Thrift Shop,” which many interpreted as an anti-Semitic riff on Jewish stereotypes. Fagin is the name of a Jewish villain in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
The manufacturer of the nose told the Times that he was going to “definitely discontinue it.”
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Employees collect merchandise ordered by customers for shipment from the Amazon.com distribution center in Phoenix, Arizona, Nov. 26, 2012. David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesA worker collects order items at the Fulfilment Centre for online retail giant Amazon in Peterborough, central England, on Nov. 28, 2013.Andrew Yates—AFP/Getty ImagesMerchandise sits on shelves before shipment at the Amazon.com Inc. distribution center in Phoenix, Arizona, Nov. 26, 2012. David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesAn employee packs merchandise for shipment at the Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 2, 2013. David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesA picture shows the Fulfilment Centre for online retail giant Amazon in Peterborough, central England, on November 28, 2013, ahead of Cyber Monday on December 2nd, expected to be one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.Andrew Yates—AFP/Getty ImagesAn employee packs orders in the Fulfilment Centre for online retail giant Amazon in Peterborough, central England, on November 28, 2013, ahead of Cyber Monday on December 2nd, expected to be one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.Andrew Yates—AFP/Getty ImagesEmployee Maria Miller loads boxes onto a conveyer belt for shipping at the Amazon.com Inc. distribution center in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. on Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesInterior view of the hall of a logistics center of the online shopping company Amazon, taken on March 26, 2014 in Leipzig, eastern Germany.
Peter Ending—AFP/Getty ImagesPackages sit in regional delivery dividers ahead of distribution at the Amazon.co.uk Marston Gate 'Fulfillment Center,' the U.K. site of Amazon.com Inc. in Ridgmont, United Kingdom, Dec. 3, 2012. Simon Dawson—Bloomberg/Getty Images
