Tuesday, August 28, 2007

THAT’S ENOUGH! : I Love My Red-Heads

Lately, I’ve been made aware of an unknown (to me) prejudice towards people with red hair, or as those who feel this hatred most acutely put it, “ginger hair.” I have read so many hateful things in my research on this subject! I am honestly embarrassed for these idiots. I’ve read everything from "fire" jibes to insinuations that red-headed children should be “put out of their misery.” Holy crap! Get the hell over it people! Seriously, do you not have anything better to do than make up inane reasons to dislike an entire group of people? Wow.

Here is a brief example of this stupidity. The first definition is what I'm taking about but the last two sound like something I'd write. These are user submitted definitions.

1. Ginger
A human, characterized by pale skin, freckles and bright red hair. "Gingers" are generally considered to be inferior to their more melanin-rich brethren, and thus deservingly discriminated against. Gingers are thought to have no souls. The condition, "gingervitis" is genetic and incurable.
Ron Howard is a ginger.

Carrot Top is a good example of why gingers should be discriminated against.

3. Ginger

A ginger is, among other things, a person with red hair, freckles and pale skin. Some darker skinned or non-ginger haired persons feel compelled to denegrate gingers out of jealousy because a ginger's look is unique.
Men typically love ginger women.

4. Ginger

A ginger is a person with red hair.

All previous entries can only be explained by the extreme likelihood that they were written by mentally-handicapped and racist children, who walked in on their mothers having extra-marital intercourse with red-haired men. Recently, magazines such as tatler, vogue, and numerous newspapers have heralded this the age of 'the ginger' and have called it the new blonde. Such articles published a list of numerous celebrities who have dyed their hair red as part of the trend.
Damian Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Lindsay Lohan, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman are all what would be called a 'ginger'

This list does not include celebrities who have recently begun dying their hair red as part of the 'new-blonde' redhead resurgence.

From:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ginger


Personally, I am an unabashed lover of the Ginger. My Gran was a red-head. My first boyfriend (kind of) was a red head (strawberry blonde). One of my first ever best friends was a red-head as well as one of my current best friends. I married a red-head and to prove my unfaltering devotion, I then gave birth to a red-head. I am blond and always have been some version of blond—so my love for the Ginger is quite pure. This is one of those things I really just don’t understand.

Honestly, I had always believed that red-heads faced a sort of innocent, teasing type of persecution. It never crossed my mind that this particular brand of prejudice came in such sinister forms as physical abuse, disgusting remarks and incessant taunting. Now I am beginning to understand why my Gran hated being called Ginger or Red-head. She insisted on the word, “Titian” (say, tee-shun). Well, I have my Gran to thank for handing down her Ginger gene to me. Thanks to that gene, I am freckled and naturally fair skinned. Mostly, it enabled my son to look the rare and intriguing way that he does. I’ll have any of these haters know that in a group of children, he is ALWAYS singled out as the one to receive exuberant praise for being so adorable with his floppy curly Ginger hair.

4 comments:

jenn said...

Hum...that is interesting. i've never really experienced much dislike from people because of my hair color. mostly everyone is pretty jealous....i do remember hating it when i was a kid though, because i did stick out like a sore thumb. it is a little un-nerving when you are a kid and in a school of 300 people and maybe 7-10 of you have the same color of hair. later in life you realize that its a very cool thing. and when i was little i did get called carrot top and was often told that my hair looked orange, which at the time was offensive to me.
I can tell you one thing that i dislike though...its the people that dye their hair red and then claim to be true red heads...do they not know that we can all tell that that is not their original color!

Naomi said...

There was this segment on Dateline or 20/20 or something like that about this redhead thing. That's kind of why I started researching the issue in the first place. I think it's a bigger problem in places like the U.K. than it is here. If my son wasn't a redhead, I'm not sure it would disturb me as badly as it does.

Anyone who dyes their hair and then lies about it makes me laugh. Like any woman can't tell?! :)

lil1liz said...

I have to agree with Jen on this as I'm a red head too, my hair is long and thick and curly and as a kid I was picked on for it, which made me hate it, but my hair is quite an unusual colouring, it's red alright, but a dark almost mahogany/copper tone, ppl tell me its unusual and ask stupid questions like is it my real colour, which annoys me cos it looks so obviously real, you couldnt get this colour in a bottle!!!As I got older I learned to appreciate it more because all I ever got was compliments

about its colour and length and I never had a problem finding a man who loved it too!! Ppl who have the time to take the piss out of red heads are sad individuals who need to get a life and stop being so ignorant!!!

Anonymous said...

yup Im a redhead too, and I'm proud of my pale skin red hair and freckled face :p