Viola Davis says Target can win back Black consumers, but only if the retailer takes specific, concrete steps rather than treating an apology as the finish line. Leaving LAX on Friday, the actress said forgiveness is possible if Target restores its diversity, equity and inclusion commitments, increases support for Black business owners, and ensures nothing resembling the costume controversy happens again.
Wait, didn’t Davis already reject Target’s apology?
She did, and that’s what makes this new statement notable. Days earlier, Davis posted on Instagram that she did not accept Target’s apology over a children’s Halloween costume many compared to blackface and minstrel-era imagery, writing that the retailer failed to grasp the depth of the harm. Her airport comments this week didn’t walk that back, but they did add nuance: rejecting the apology as written doesn’t mean the door is permanently closed, provided Target actually changes its behavior instead of just its messaging.
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What was the costume, and why did people react so strongly?
The $25 item, marketed as a ‘Kids’ Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume,’ featured a black and orange bodysuit, black gloves, and a hood with an exaggerated smile and small top hat, modeled by a young Black boy in promotional images. Historians at the National Museum of African American History and Culture trace minstrel-style caricatures back to 19th century performances built on exaggerated makeup and stereotyped behavior meant to demean Black people, with the Jim Crow character tied to performer Thomas D. Rice around 1830. Critics said the costume’s design echoed that same visual language closely enough that it couldn’t be dismissed as coincidence.
Has anyone connected this to Target’s DEI rollback more directly than before?
Yes, and two specific figures have now gone on record. Minneapolis business leader Sheletta Brundidge, who has previously protested Target’s diversity rollback, asked directly who is actually in the room now to flag something like this before it ships, pointing to the 2025 DEI cuts as the reason nobody caught it. Georgia pastor Jamal Bryant, who led a 40 day boycott of Target last year, said the imagery goes beyond a simple mistake and argued it shows the company still lacks the internal diversity among decision makers needed to prevent it from happening again.
Has Target explained how the costume got approved?
No. The company has confirmed it pulled the costume and apologized directly for the harm caused, particularly to Black customers, employees and partners, and has said it’s examining how the product cleared its review process. But it has not identified who designed the costume, who approved it, or what specifically broke down internally, leaving the exact question Brundidge and Bryant raised unanswered.
So what would actually satisfy Davis?
Three things, by her own account: restoring the DEI programs the company scaled back, meaningfully increasing support for Black owned businesses, and making sure a similar product never reaches shelves again. None of those are symbolic gestures, and all three would require Target to reverse decisions it made deliberately just last year, which is likely why Davis framed forgiveness as conditional rather than automatic.
For a company already absorbing boycott fallout tied to its 2025 DEI rollback, Davis’s comments function less like a closed door and more like a checklist, one that shifts the pressure back onto Target to show its next move rather than its next statement.
