Home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond has pulled its black jack-o-lantern Halloween decorations over complaints that they resemble "blackface" and are therefore racially insensitive.
Yes. An entire store chain just yanked some dark-colored plastic pumpkins off its shelves – and apologized for them – because a few people said they were racist.
Welcome to 2019.
The whole thing started when Feerick, Nugent, MacCartney Law Offices in Nyack, New York, put up a Halloween display on their front porch using BB&B’s black jack-o-lanterns, prompting several members of the community to complain over the allegedly “racist” décor and forcing the firm take the pumpkins down less than 48 hours after putting them out.
Local NAACP Director Wilbur Aldridge went so far as to claim the display showed "extreme lack of sensitivity” toward people of color.
“By now I would believe everyone [would] know that anything in Black face is offensive,” he said. “Equally as offensive is that a retail store would have such an item in [their] inventory for general purchase.”
The firm, which employs several people of color, actually put out a statement saying they didn’t mean to offend anyone with their black pumpkins and noted that they took down the decorations the moment they realized some people were upset.
“We understand that someone complained about them and so once we got word of that we immediately took them down," says Mary Marzolla, a partner at the law firm, according to News12.
Following the vocal (albeit small) outcry, Bed Bath & Beyond apologized for ever having sold the pumpkins in the first place, saying that they had “immediately removed” the pumpkins from their shelves to avoid offending anyone else.
And this is why we can't have nice things.