Mega-store Walmart has officially pulled from their stores and apologized for selling an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume, The Huffington Post reports, after being issued a letter from offended members of the Sikh community who say that the costume perpetuates 9/11-related and other harmful racial stereotypes.
The Sikh Coalition wrote letters and made phone calls to retailers who were selling the offending costume, including Amazon.com and Walmart. The outfit in question appears to have been manufactured by Fun World Costumes, and is currently for sale at stores like Sears and Rite Aid.
Amazon.com had it listed as the "Fun World Adult Mens Osama Bin Laden Middle East Costume Turban + Beard," while Walmart had it listed as the "Turban Beard Adult Halloween Instant Costume" before it was removed from their online store.
"If you lost a loved one during the 9/11 attacks or during our nation's war against Al Qaeda, or if someone attacked your father in a hate crime because he wears a turban, I doubt this costume would make you comfortable," Rajdeep Singh, Director of Law and Policy at The Sikh Coalition, told The Huffington Post.
On their official website, The Sikh Coalition writes that the racially and culturally insensitive costume promotes "negative stereotypes about turbans and beards that have led to violence and discrimination against Sikhs and other minorities."
Via email, a Walmart spokesperson confirmed to the The Huffington Post that the offending Osama bin Laden costume is no longer being sold at their stores. "We sincerely apologize to any customers who may have been offended by this costume," they wrote. Meanwhile, Amazon.com representatives have not responded to requests for comment, though the costume is no longer available for sale on their site.
In their letter to Walmart and other major U.S. retailers, The Sikh Coalition provided two pictures for comparison: one of the offensive costume, and the other of Osama bin Laden, suggesting that the vague description of a "turban bearded adult" did not convey the intentions of the costume makers for the outfit to resemble bin Laden.
A recent Stanford study on hate crime found that 70 percent of Americans mis-identify Sikhs as Muslims, "Hindus, Buddhists, or members of the Shinto faith," while Sikhs are often the target of racist attacks and pejoratives such as "terrorist" and "Osama."
Click here to read the letter from Simran Kaur, Advocacy Manager of the Sikh Coalition, to Amazon.com asking for the company to remove the product from their website.
