Pakage Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 A red-haired family claims to have been driven from their Newcastle home because of abuse. Why is the harassment of redheads dismissed as just harmless fun? Here's a joke. "What's the difference between a terrorist and a redhead?" Here's the punchline. "You can negotiate with a terrorist." Is this offensive? If it was made in your workplace, within hearing of a redheaded colleague, would you make a fuss? Probably not. But mock someone's ethnicity, religion or sexuality and you will attract the beady eye of management. Make a sexist joke and prepare to be dismissed as an antediluvian relic. Verbal abuse Carrot-top, copper-top, ginger-nut, ginger minger, bluey (among Australians), Duracell, Ronald McDonald, Simply Red, Queen Elizabeth. And so on for hours and hours of the typical redhead's life. No wonder some gloss over their hair colour as "auburn" and "strawberry blonde" and even "titian". Photographer Charlotte Rushton has been chronicling the UK's redheads for a book, Ginger Snaps. Of the 300 she snapped, only two have been spared bullying because of their hair. She herself has suffered verbal abuse from complete strangers. "I was on the Tube, pregnant, and I was really humiliated by this drunk yob. He was shouting 'do the cuffs and the collars match?' He got right up into my face. You don't do that to other people." She believes the phenomenon is long-standing and uniquely British in its most virulent form. "In other countries redheads will get teased at school but it stops when they become adults. If you are a woman you are fiery and alluring, beautiful." In adult life, women get stereotyped and red-haired men take much of the worst abuse. Treatment of red-haired children in school ranges from mild taunts to grim persecution. Michele Eliot, the American director of British children's charity Kidscape, regularly has significant numbers of red-haired children in courses on coping with bullying. "There is nothing like this in the US where having red hair is not a precursor to having someone abuse you. Red hair is considered glamorous." Bullies at school and in later life may sense that ill-treatment of the red-haired will not be treated as seriously by the authorities as persecution of other groups. "Bullies think that person is outside the norm, they will be able to attack them. The bullies find something to pick on. The bully has a problem and needs a victim," Ms Eliot says. Racism row While there has been at least one report of a serious anti-red hair hate crime in the UK - a 20-year-old stabbed in the back in 2003 - it's unclear whose responsibility it is to monitor discrimination. "It is certainly not us," says the Commission for Racial Equality. Conservative backbencher Patrick Mercer, when recently sacked for alleged racism, sought to get himself out of a hole by comparing treatment of black soldiers to those with red hair. "That's the way it is in the Army. If someone is slow on the assault course, you'd get people shouting: 'Come on you fat bastard, come on you ginger bastard, come on you black bastard.'" One of these three epithets would now be regarded as totally unacceptable, and possibly against the law. Even the first, mocking someone's weight, is under a sustained assault from feminists and those concerned about what society's treatment of weight issues does to vulnerable teenagers. But the abuse can be far from innocuous. "We talk about kicking racism out of sport but this is just as bad in its way," said Reading striker Dave Kitson in 2005. He can't have been delighted when the Daily Star reported his remarks under the headline "Kitson's a right ginger whinger". Or when players' association chief Gordon Taylor said: "It belittles racism to compare the two issues." Journalist Sharon Jaffa - also a red-head - says society must stop its ginger-baiting. "Growing up as a redhead I was lucky enough to escape with just the occasional name-calling - having the surname Jaffa was no doubt a double-whammy. But attacking someone on the basis of their hair colour can be every bit as damaging as persecuting someone for their race or religion, and therefore, in some cases, needs to be taken just as seriously." Red hair has great cultural resonance. Red is the colour of heat, danger and warnings. When applied to women, it is the colour of sensuousness, fiery temperament and emotional instability. "Lilith [Adam's lover] was a redhead. It indicates red hair was bad. Shakespeare made all his most menacing characters wear red wigs. That seeps into culture," Ms Rushton says. Stress release So when does this date from? Some claim it could be a throwback to anti-Irish sentiment from the 19th Century and before when the Irish, with a greater prevalence of red hair, were regarded as ethnically inferior. Patrick O'Sullivan, head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit, says he has never come across a link. "People could feel forbidden to attack their usual victims and are searching around for ones that have not yet achieved the protection of the law." Professor Larry Ray, a sociologist at the University of Kent and an expert on racial discrimination, says the perpetrators could be habitual bullies. "If they are engaging in one kind of harassment they are engaging in others. They are looking for targets." For those who claim their workplace taunts are just harmless banter, it could be stress rather than an anthropological aversion to red hair. Workplace psychologist Professor Cary Cooper, of Lancaster University, says abuse can be "an unhealthy release valve for stress" and redheads, as a visible minority not protected by law, have become a target. While other forms of the discrimination are the subject of marches, lobbying and education campaigns, redheads cannot expect the arrival of the politically correct cavalry anytime soon. what do you think? The only times i have been seriously teased about being a ginga was school, and it pretty much stopped by about 4th or 5th form i think. Not many hassles since then to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelzzzz Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 I said who cares, but i guess i mean yes, but there isn't much difference between the hell people give red heads and the hell that people give blondes, i dont think anyone means to be offensive, just to be funny, but with any humour there are lines you can cross with some people and other people its better not to. I love red heads and blondes the same as i love people with any other hair colour, or race or whatever. I'm gonna finish reading the article now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 everyone gets shit one way or another... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelzzzz Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 everyone gets shit one way or another... amen to that. dunno how many times i've been a 'chinese bitch' ... how people know i'm half chinese is beyond me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LyraKil Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 Pakage you forgot the saying "fanta pants" but its all good, its a bit ruff all the shit ppl cop for being a red head but no matter what some one will give you shit for some thing so no matter whats its going to go down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merge Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 haha being a ginge myself i can agree with pakage.... the name calling stopped in school. the only rare occurence now and then seem to always come from people who look to have fallen from the ugly tree breaking all the branches on the way down.. I'm so over taking offence to the calls, have been for ages... all I can say now is, built a tough skin and bring on the people in glass houses throwing stones, they can prepare to be battled! ha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 meh - its not until uni that being unique is a good thing. Conformity = survival... thank fuck people grow up after college. A big red beacon on ya head makes it kinda hard =) anyway - everyone gets shit for something at some time - and its only usually your friends that rip into you, if some random did it I say open season on them =p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pakage Posted July 9, 2007 Author Share Posted July 9, 2007 yeah, hard. friends = all good strangers = bash in the face it was pretty bad 4 me at primary.. fat + ginga + smart = ripped on hard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 yeah, hard. friends = all good strangers = bash in the face it was pretty bad 4 me at primary.. fat + ginga + smart = ripped on hard ugly bro... you forgot to mention ugly =p *people in glasshouses...* This is coming from the person who is almost sure the song 'DJ Format - Ugly Brothers' is based on his life story =p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merge Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 *people in glasshouses...* This is coming from the person who is almost sure the song 'DJ Format - Ugly Brothers' is based on his life story =p Aye?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 yeah man... glasses + braces + freakishly tall + weird name = a fuck load of shit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merge Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 i cop a lot more shit for being tall than bein ginge. strange tht. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 *people in glasshouses...* This is coming from the person who is almost sure the song 'DJ Format - Ugly Brothers' is based on his life story =p Aye?? listen to the song - the lyrics are so crack up - but in my life nearly every single one of them applies to me (didnt have orthodontal work and glasses but the rest fit)... least in the first 2 verses. and a few of the verses fit in with my sis as well which makes it even funnier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thr339z Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 I think that mocking red heads is absolutely bad as racism , it in effect is "a kind of racism". directed at celts well bak in the ol days and shit perpertarted by the filthy english < its always the case and I think always will be until class and money is destroyed that if somthing or some one is diff than the masses they will be picked on, as we innately thru sociolisation tend to attack any thing that dont fit in our perscribed box.. and me being a sneaky redhead I am down with u pakmang,, werd also my sun being a auburn kid ,, no doubt he will experience these issues you went thru .. to cut tings short.. fuck race fuck class FUCK hair colour we are ALL human... one race many colours. big ups to the unity massive chur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzzp Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 hassling someone because there hair is orange is about as pathetic as william hong on american idle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kritical Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 yeah, hard. friends = all good strangers = bash in the face it was pretty bad 4 me at primary.. fat + ginga + smart = ripped on hard ugly bro... you forgot to mention ugly =p he also forgot homosexual Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Gunn Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 kelz ur the most azn half azn I've ever known!! so am I haha... I just get called 'fukn asian' and I call asians 'fukn asians' too lol no harm intented!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzzp Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 fukin asians. jk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_weazel Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 everyone gets shit one way or another... amen to that. dunno how many times i've been a 'chinese bitch' ... how people know i'm half chinese is beyond me. Pffft, you look hard-out chinese! I mean, those slanty green eyes, the grey fur and the whiskers.... oh... wait... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pakage Posted July 9, 2007 Author Share Posted July 9, 2007 yeah, hard. friends = all good strangers = bash in the face it was pretty bad 4 me at primary.. fat + ginga + smart = ripped on hard ugly bro... you forgot to mention ugly =p he also forgot homosexual oi.. you.. nooooooooooooooooo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hakomi Posted July 10, 2007 Share Posted July 10, 2007 Seriously the only time hassles ever really hurt was in primary school for me and they soon faded into the distance. Most hassling comes out of a lack of self confidence anyway so if people are doing it i almost feel sorry for them. Workplace hassles can be a bitch though i remember years back i worked at continental cars fuck man from day one they rinse the new guy. It never worked on me i just never took any notice of them and it was gone pretty swifty. But another new guy always took offence and tried to get them back and hes probably still there getting downtrailed and having oil pans tipped on his head Moral of the story dont give the fucks the time of day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pakage Posted July 10, 2007 Author Share Posted July 10, 2007 yeah word, its all about getting the reaction eh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KN Posted July 11, 2007 Share Posted July 11, 2007 My favourite mock is Fanta Pants. We're thinking about using gingers for our mascott at work. Because the colour of one of our products is orange and the fact that they always get mocked and are the underdogs would make it funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LyraKil Posted July 11, 2007 Share Posted July 11, 2007 i was watching a program about gingers and it takes 20% more drugs to knock em out for opperation n shit. thats cranky as so i wonder does that apply to rereational shit as well. ????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pakage Posted July 11, 2007 Author Share Posted July 11, 2007 i was watching a program about gingers and it takes 20% more drugs to knock em out for opperation n shit. thats cranky as so i wonder does that apply to rereational shit as well. ????? i think it does, i can take enough stuff to knock out a rhino and im still crankin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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