Party City has demanded that one of its Virginia stores remove a Confederate soldier costume after one mother complained that “to me,” the outfit was a “symbol of racism.”
“The Confederate flag to me is a symbol of racism. To have that out there for a child to wear on Halloween sends so many horrible messages,” Caroline Brasler, who adopted two black daughters, told the party store after she came across the costume on the shelves of one of their locations in Crossroads, Virginia.
“We discuss race, we respect race. And to see something like that just flies in the face of everything I try to teach them to be proud young women,” Brasler told the outlet, saying she and her daughters left the store and bought their costumes elsewhere.
This particular Party City location wasn’t one of the company’s corporate owned stores, but rather a franchise. Nevertheless, the company ordered the store to remove the costume that offended this one particular lady, declaring that they don’t “tolerate racism or hatred of any kind.”
“We have reached out to our franchisees and other partners to remove it from all retail locations ASAP,” the company said. “We know that as a company, we can and must do better.”
Party City added that the company “supplies a broad assortment of costumes, none of which are meant to be offensive in any way.” Notably, the store also offers a racy “Adult Blessed Babe Nun Costume” featuring a model in a short-skirted nun habit.
Interestingly, Virginia is also home to Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam, who has admitted to being one of two people in an old college photo - one of whom is wearing blackface, the other of whom is dressed as a Klansman. To this day, it’s not clear which of the heavily disguised people is Northam, who remains in office, apparently offending nobody.