To think that expressing anti-red hair views is still seen as okay

[GnomeDePlume]

but is very, very wrong

DD(14) came home absolutely fuming having witnessed a red-headed girl of around 8 being verbally abused by a boy of around 10 while the mum of the boy told the girl to 'take the joke' even though the girl was very distressed. Fortunately the girl's brother rescued her.

DH is red-headed and believes that anti-red hair sentiment has become more common in recent years. Possibly because abusing somebody about the colour of their skin can get them arrested. Abusing somebody about the colour of their hair is seen as a fair target.

I dont get it. I have witnessed someone absolutely rip into a colleague, abusing him and his children (all red-headed) and this man could not see that what he was doing was wrong.

(Juggling, thankfully it was a randomly chosen number, but I am pretty attached to them :) ).

Fantastic post summer and sorry to hear you had such a terrible time. I had similar issues at school - my lowest point was being badly beaten up on a train at the age of 12 by a group of older teens who 'didnt like' my hair. The first of three times in my life when I've been physically attacked for my hair colour.

To be honest, telling people to man up and get on with things otherwise 'where do you draw line' is just minimising real experiences. As is suggesting that the real issue is the pale eyebrows/eyelashes that goes with having red hair and that we should consider tinting them to solve the problem (as was suggested upthread).

Agree with Thumbwitch.

Having Red Hair is NOT a Race.

I have brown hair.
I have blonde hair
I have dark brown hair.
I have red hair.

You are NOT a race, because you have red hair

You just have:

Red Hair.

Alas this is not the first red hair abuse thread nor do I fear will it be the last....... I also experienced the vileness of other children due to my hair colour, although not to the extent that summer did, big hug to you. DH has(had!!)red hair, and so does Ds, with dd on the way soon who we are also expecting to arrive with a beautiful crop of red hair my mum used to say two things when I was on the receiving end of hair hatred: the hair colour is usually a warning of a temper (true in my case) and if they don't heed the warning then they deserve a punch in the face...... And the other was to remind me how many women paid stupid amounts of money to get hair my colour.
Have not thought how I will support my children when dealing with this, but will have to have a plan as I think I will be inevitable.....

I'm blonde and clearly stupid (despite having a PhD)
Gingers are the same a c anybody ego has just watched ed Sheran at Glastonbury must know that gingers are gorgeous! :)

My DD has lovely red hair and has never had any problems at school. Mainly because the school bully also has red hair and is completely in love with her.

Anybody suggesting that short people have it as bad as redheads is being ridiculous

I don't have red hair, i don't think anybody in my family does, but ive heard of people with red hair getting some really nasty things said and done to them, the whole 'ginger pubes' and 'gingers have no soul' stuff, being relentlessly bullied and even physically attacked etc

I'm short. Worst thing that anybody had ever said/done to me is call me 'short arse'

You cant compare that to the abuse redheads get

A PP described a journey where she heard a small boy asking his dad 'is it gingers I hate or ninjas?' The father replied that it was ninjas. What this says to me is that some parents consider it okay to hate.

Tribalism, we hate people who arent in our tribe. It is both negative and dangerous. I wonder if this tribalism is one of the things behind hatred of red haired people. That thing of being 'not one of us'. I wonder if that might explain some of the anger especially aimed at children.

However explaining does not justify. IMO there needs to be national education of children and adults that hate of another person simply because they arent part of their tribe is entirely unacceptable.

Schools should be dealing with prejudice. They should not be brushing it under the carpet. Individuals teachers have spoken up on this thread but how many schools do actually recognise the problem?

I would be interested to know if secondary schools recognise it as a problem or just brush it off as normal teasing too.

Some of the people on this thread have definitely been victims of hate crimes connected to their hair colour.

well some crazy people seem to see red hair as being like a curse but i'd rather be a normal heighted red head than the short mouse haired being i am.

Red hair is a more prevalent characteristic in some races and nationalities. Therefore, to offensive remarks about red hair is essentially racist

Just as making pejorative comments about afro hair would be.

In any event, making rude comments about any characteristic is actually unacceptable. There is no hierarchy

I would say when I was at high school, it was considered generally normal teasing, even when it crossed the line into sexual harassment. Me and another girl in my form both had red hair, and both were regularly asked about the colour of our pubic hair, sometimes in quite intimate detail. Teachers definitely witnessed it, but none ever stepped in. It was stuff that really wasn't ok to be said to 11-13 year old girls as well as the usual teasing type stuff.

However, I would say the level of teasing is probably related to attractiveness- I had a relatively early puberty, and by 15 I was pretty "well developed" and as my attractiveness increased the teasing/bullying basically stopped. However, that doesn't make it right, and I do think it is something schools should take more seriously. I learned to give as good as I got, but that doesn't make it ok. I was very insecure about my looks as a teenager (more so than usual), and I do think the teasing about my hair continued.

I don't think it's the same as racism, but I do think it has some roots in anti-irish sentiments. There's also seems to be some anti-redhead sentiments in the catholic church, and I have heard that redheads were more likely to be burned as witches (don't know how true it is though).

However, it is actually a superior mutation, at least in the UK- the pale skin and lack of pigmentation enables us to absorb more vitamin D, meaning redheads historically were less likely to get rickets and other diseases.

Basically, all bullying needs to be treated seriously, but I do think there are specific examples with the teasing of redheads (particularly when it becomes sexual in nature) when schools/adults should step in.

No it really isn't racist (technically and semantically), but it definitely is a hate crime and it pisses me off as much as the next person that it is trivialised by so many.

These threads crop up over and over again - the one I remember most was when that card came out as a joke in Tesco or somewhere - and there was at least one poster on there who said that they used all the rude names associated with ginger hair in the home, themselves, to their red-headed child, so that child wouldn't associate them with being bullied. I just thought "how sad, even at home the child isn't safe from being called names because of their hair colour" because however hard you try to disassociate the names from the bullying, the intent is still clear, and that child could have easily started wondering why on earth its parents chose to use those words too.

Others say "oh we're just teasing, it's not that bad" - yeah right. You try being on the back end of it day in, day out.

I have red hair and 3 of my 5 children also have red hair.

Since having my children I have had a number of things happen which have made me worry for my children. One which I posted about in mn at the time was taking my red haired newborn daughter to the doctor and a man in the waiting room telling me that his wife had always said that if her baby had red hair she would kill herself !

My red haired children are my three youngest (the older two have DHs hair!) and so only one has started school but already she has had a few comments which have been a little off but as of yet nothing major . If she gets bullied for her hair colour i will take her out of school , i know it sounds drastic but I know from experience how nasty it can get.

Going way back to that tiny sliver of red in the southeast of Kentucky and northeast of Tennessee, in the US...that region was settled by what I've always heard called 'Ulster Scots' - descendants of Scottish people that (I believe, and someone please correct me if I've heard wrong) moved over to Northern Ireland early on, possibly to get out of the reach of Edward I. Both my mother's and my father's sides of the family have lived in that little red part of Appalachia since the late eighteenth century. And yes, there are a LOT of red-haired people down there. The TV show 'Justified' is actually spot-on in its portrayals of many of the people in Harlan County, KY.

I disagree completely with the posters who say it is not racism, to me it quite obviously is.

Red hair is far more prevalent in people who are Scottish or Irish and their descendants. The abuse of people with red hair is known to be deeply rooted in anti Scottish/celtic bias. Furthermore racism is not just defined as race or skin colour, which is a naive way to look at it. Even the UN defintition of racial discrimination includes the words......"any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference......based on .....descent or national or ethnic origin...".

Some countries have even omitted the word race from their offical defintions of racism and discrimination legislation so to claim people with red hair are not a race and therefore cannot be subject to racism is nonsense.

It is racism and should be a hate crime.

I was bullied at school for being ginger but tbh I think people will always find a reason to bully others no matter what .I did worry that if i had a ginger child the same would happen to them but ds2 (the only ginger out of the 5 ,actually ginger is wrong his is orange lol ) has ASD so it goes over his head completely :D I love being ginger now ,I love my hair and the fact I have no grey at 45 - suck it up bullies !!

Thanks for that interesting post and info innogen I think I agree with you. I've not seen anything here so far to convince me that it cannot be a type of abuse within the "racism" umbrella. But in Quaker speak .... I do accept that I might be mistaken

Oh gosh, Summer! It sounds like a parallel universe you are describing. Are there people who go on like that?

I married a red haired man. The vibrancy of his hair colour has unfortunately dulled with age. It was lovely when he grew facial hair for Movember beause the bright hue was still there.

The hair on his arms are quite strawberry coloured and in the sunshine they shine like 24 kt gold.

Red hair is so beautiful.

I'm still in love with my DH's (golden) forearms too Bird not sure about the rest of him this morning, it was one of those weekends

Juggling!

There's a redheaded boy in 16yo DS's year whom we all thought was blonde, right from joining the school in reception. Recently his mum stopped dyeing his hair as he decided to "go ginger". His copious freckles make much more sense now!

I agree about comments saying its an English thing. I am from the US and it was never really a thing there.

When I think of red hair, it usually associated with a female childhood character that is independent, feisty, and adventurousLittle Mermaid, Pippy Longstockings, Annie and other cartoons (cant quite remember the names of all of them).