“Fat girl costumes” are not the only problematic products Walmart is pushing this Halloween. Qasim Rashid, as spokesperson for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA has discovered the “Mens Pashtun Papa Costume,” which consists of vaguely-Middle Eastern looking garb and a long beard. The description for the item reads, “Nothing is sacred this Halloween. Shock your friends with this Islamic costume.”
For some reason, the photo is no longer available on the Walmart website, but the description remains.
Rashid began tweeting about the costume early Friday afternoon:
Wow @Walmart jumping on the opportunity to make money off racism against Pashtuns this Halloween. pic.twitter.com/TPcA1DeFjm
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) October 31, 2014
"Shock your friends with this Islamic costume." Seriously @Walmart you are shameless & ignorant. #NotYourCostume pic.twitter.com/rUxznrunjP
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) October 31, 2014
As one of his followers noted, Pashtuns are traditionally from Afghanistan and Pakistan and not the Middle East:
@MuslimIQ @Walmart not only that, Pashtuns are in Central Asia, not the Middle East.
— David Priority (@lil_buckarooski) October 31, 2014
UPDATE — 1:35 p.m. ET: Walmart has removed the Pashtun costume from its website. In a statement, Brooke Buchanan, senior director of Walmart Corporate Communications said that it was being sold through Costume Kingdom, one of Walmart’s third-party vendors:
“When it was brought to our attention on social media, we began working to pull this down. We are deeply sorry that this costume is on our website, and we are pulling it down as soon as possible. We are calling on all of the other retailers to pull it down as well. We have strict policies with our third party vendors, and it’s very important to us that products on the site don’t offend groups of people, or minorities.”
[h/t @AntDeRosa]
[Photos via Walmart/Facebook]
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