I'm a redhead and agree with those who can't even bring ourselves to use the "G" word as it dredges up such bad memories.
I was bullied throughout my schooldays because of my hair colour. I had no friends and was utterly miserable. I was punched in the face by strangers; pinned against walls and interrogated about the colour of my pubic hair; thrown down stairs and on one occassion pushed into the road in front of a bus while a group of older teenagers screamed "kill the ginger!"
I had taunts of ginger, ginga, ginger minger, ginger pubes and so many more, shouted or whispered at me wherever I went. I used to dread the singsong greeting of "hey ginga" from behind as I knew that turning around would bring some kind of physical or emotional torture; trying to run away and avoid the situation would make it worse.
Anyone brushing up against me would then run away screaming that they had "ginger disease" which would then start a frenzy of classmates trying to wipe it off on each other.
A new teacher when I was around 14, turned to the rest of the class when I entered the room for the first time, saying, "oh god, we've got one of them. Don't you just hate gingers". After two years of putting up with him telling me the sight of me made him sick and encouraging the rest of the class to ridicule me, I eventually snapped. Having heard a rumour that he was very sensitive about his own bald head I politely and sweetly answered one of his taunts by querying what hair colour he used to have and was this the reason for his jealousy which he was trying to disguise at bitterness. He went puce, spluttered and gave me detention. The only detention I ever had at school - and it got overturned when I explained to the year head what had happened!
I had other girls tell me that they quite liked me but couldn't be friends because they couldn't be seen hanging out with a ginger. At age 17, a guy I had fancied since S1, told me he really liked me and wished he got ask me out but his reputation would be ruined if he went out with someone like me.
I kept diaries throughout my teenage years and they are full of my hair-induced misery. Outside of school my family fawned over my "beautiful" hair and I was often stopped my little old ladies who told me how lovely it was. I didn't understand why people of my own age could not see it the same way. I used to sit crying in the night, afraid to go to school the next day and I wrote in my diaries about how I wanted to kill myself. On one occassion I went as far as to collect every pill i could in the house - over the counter pain relief, prescription meds etc and sat with them in front of me, willing myself to take them all. But then, as I wrote in my diary; if I was to kill myself, it would be over something that matters to me and not to other people.
It wasn't just me. There were other redheads at school getting the same treatment on a daily basis. The boys got it worse and even at my lowest ebb, I was eternally grateful for being female.
I found university to be a completely new world where nobody ever commented on anything so frivolous as my hair colour. There, some people complimented me on it and meant it! I did however work part time in a well known department store as a student and found the grown women there to be as bad as the children I'd known at school. A group of women in their 40s even did the "ginger disease" thing if I touched them. One woman thought it was the finniest thing ever to come up to me and say (it was 1996!) "The Spice Girls are Baby, Sport, Posh, Scary and... I can't remember the other one...?" And when I replied Ginger, she and her cronies would fall about, hooting with laughter.
I don't have children and it is unlikely I will but people have asked if the reason is because I don't want to pass on the gene. My brother has Downs Syndrome so I would always feign ignorance and ask if that is what they mean but no, they always mean being a redhead; which apparently is a worse fate than disability.
Red hair runs in my family. My aunt freely admits that she was devastated and couldn't stop crying when my younger cousin was born with red hair. She started dying it for him when he was 12, so he would look better. Now he is 22 and has reverted to his natural colour, much to her disappointment.
A while ago, I met a woman at a party who spoke about having had her son with IVF and donor sperm. Or, she said "the other way to look at it is that I paid good money to ensure I didn't end up with a ginger one". Everyone laughed.
The year, two close friends have had babies within days of each other. The first, born to dark haired parents is red. My friend related this fact to me in hushed tones on the phone. When the other friend's child was born with a full head of dark hair, dark eyes etc despite the fact that his father is a proper pale redhead (the mother is darker), friend no1 threw an almighty strop about it being unfair and the other couple should have got the ginger one. Any time I've seen couple no.2 socially, someone will always point out their son's "lucky escape".
All this is in central Scotland so not just an English thing at all.
I know that technically and semantically it is not racist. Too many people however seem to take that to mean that all is okay then. It's not. It is still prejudice, bigotry and a hate crime. While the instances I've mentioned are nothing compared to the atrocities inflicted on ethnic groups throughout history and even now in other parts of the world, I would describe the level of hate-fueled attacks I have experienced as being as bad as modern racism.
Yes, teasing happens and people are teased about many things but too often in this specific situation, teasing turns to bullying and that is not okay. I understand that people who are tall, short, overweight, wear glasses etc have experienced prejudice but I don't believe it is to the same extent and the examples I have mentioned just wouldn't happen to other categories. Nobody would suggest that someone not have children because they might wear glasses and people that are short are not treated as lesser human beings in the way that I experienced and if you substitute any ethic description in the examples I have cited, the jokes would not be "funny" at all.
Unfortunately the more people just tell redheads to take the joke or tell us we are being oversensitive, the more encouragement there is to continue.