Today in deeply offensive Halloween costumes: A sheik outfit with a giant fake nose

By Nidhi Prakash  |  October 27, 2015 | 8:02pm
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It’s Halloween this weekend, and the racist costumes are rolling out every day in the lead-up. Today’s sample, something called “Sheik Fagin Nose,” is basically a giant fake nose and a piece of fabric (it’s unclear if the facial hair is included or grow-your-own). It appears to be designed to turn the wearer into some kind of vaguely Arabian Sheik, based on some broad, pretty racist caricatures of what that looks like:

https://twitter.com/thekarami/status/659064992554086400

Walmart had taken the costume off their website a few hours after these tweets, but the version of the site that was up two days ago (Oct. 25) is still available in Google cache:

But just because it’s not on Walmart’s website anymore doesn’t mean it’s disappeared forever. Fear not if you really have the urge to dress up in a deeply offensive outfit on the last day of October. This product is available at other online retailers, too.

HalloweenHallway.com, for example, appears to have the same “costume,” and describe it as a “Latex prosthetic nose perfect for an Arab Sheik. Easy to wear.” It’s also available at Studio F/X, and of course on Amazon, where it’s being sold as “Sultan Nose Latex Appliance.”

There were a bunch of reviews from people who had bought the costume. Their main issue? The nose was hard to put on.

“For the price I expected a little higher quality, but this does the job,” wrote one. “It was for Halloween and absolutely did the trick. A tad expensive I think for a rubber nose but all is well.”

“This nose was hard to put on (even with Spirit gum). The nose is VERY pale and did not hold the makeup coating, so it looked very out of place,” wrote another customer.

This person had, I suppose, a slightly better way to put this nose to use: “I used this to be Gru from Despicable Me and it was a hit!”

Several Amazon reviewers over the past two weeks called for Amazon to take the costume down:

“Wow! I bought this costume last year and LOVED IT! Not only was it completely inappropriate and offensive — it fit really well too! J/K. We want this costume taken down! I thought wearing this costume would boil an entire culture down to a racist stereotype. And I was right: Turns out, I was representing the culture in a super inaccurate and unflattering way! We want this costume taken down!” they wrote.

This reviewer really got to the point: “Someone’s ethnicity is not a costume. How is this even here? SMH,” they wrote.

 
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