Kick A Ginger Day inspired kids to kick gingers.

The first time I ever encountered ginger hate was when I was around 13 or so, and it popped up on a sci-fi show our local PBS station used to show after I got home from school. At first, I didn't even realize ginger meant people with red hair. I found it inexplicable then, and that was 40+ years ago.

Actually, most of the cases I can think of I've encountered of ginger hate were on shows from the UK. I didn't eve know it existed in the states. But then, I don't watch South Park, and I'm actually quite fond of red heads. Used to die my hair red when I was younger.

Lapin wrote:

There used to be an old belief that people with red hair were...how to put this? Associated with witchcraft, is probably the best way to phrase it. Can be traced back pretty far, actually. Red hair, being kind of uncommon, was strange, and people blamed magic for everything. Wasn't such a bad thing until the Christians came, and then pagan/witchcraft = evil came about in a much stronger fashion.

In some cultures, it was bad even before then. The Egyptian god Set (brother-killer, would-be nephew-raper, had the head of a mysterious unknown animal--the man was the furry of his time) was supposedly a redhead. And I remember reading that according to tests on his mummy, the pharaoh Rameses II likely had red hair. It may have added to his literally killer rep. In short, different is weird, and weird often equals bad.

Re "redheaded stepchild"--I've heard that one a lot. I think it goes further than the Irish bit: since red hair was uncommon, it singled out a redheaded stepchild as obviously (especially to an external observer) Not Your Kid, and that has connotations of rocking another man's cradle. You can do a lot with an accusation of bastardy.

At any rate, I don't get the ginger-hate myself. I do remember once seeing a ginger wigger, and thinking it made an incredibly goofy picture, but that's about it. As usual, it seems that South Park took a topic and mocked it shamelessly, and some idiots took them too seriously. Story of the Internet.

I grew up in Britain (obviously) but I'd never encountered ginger hate until I was grown up. In fact, I'd never encountered it until the last five-ten years - I first heard of it from my sister in law, who said if the twins she was carrying were ginger she'd send them back.

Guess what? They were ginger.

And there was much laughter at her expense - apparently my brother didn't tell her there was a recessive red hair gene in my family.

ZoZo wrote:

Pretty much exactly what it is. As far as I'm aware, most of the ginger-hate comes from England, and we're meant to hate the Irish and Scottish. Who are more likely to be ginger.

It got shipped across the pond. Irish immigrants were the original Mexicans. (OHNOES POPERY)

Tungsten Monk wrote:

Re "redheaded stepchild"--I've heard that one a lot. I think it goes further than the Irish bit: since red hair was uncommon, it singled out a redheaded stepchild as obviously (especially to an external observer) Not Your Kid, and that has connotations of rocking another man's cradle. You can do a lot with an accusation of bastardy.

Really? Someone once told me that it had more to do with the intermingling of immigrant families in America, i.e. that Italian and Irish families would be united by marriage, resulting in Italians having, well, red-headed stepchildren, which they presumably hid from their other relatives so they wouldn't reveal the horrible, horrible shame of having married non-Italians.

I don't know how accurate that explanation is, though. They could've just been pulling it out of their ass.

Azzandra wrote:

Tungsten Monk wrote:

Re "redheaded stepchild"--I've heard that one a lot. I think it goes further than the Irish bit: since red hair was uncommon, it singled out a redheaded stepchild as obviously (especially to an external observer) Not Your Kid, and that has connotations of rocking another man's cradle. You can do a lot with an accusation of bastardy.

Really? Someone once told me that it had more to do with the intermingling of immigrant families in America, i.e. that Italian and Irish families would be united by marriage, resulting in Italians having, well, red-headed stepchildren, which they presumably hid from their other relatives so they wouldn't reveal the horrible, horrible shame of having married non-Italians.

I don't know how accurate that explanation is, though. They could've just been pulling it out of their ass.

That's probably part of it too. I don't think there's one universal explanation, but the bastardy issue was probably a factor. Ditto the unpopularity of the Irish, insular cultures, etcetera.

At any rate, gingers tend to be the reddest of the redheads--less red and more orange. And their overall coloration is very distinctive, with the extremely pale skin and freckles. Higher visibility and rarity makes them much better targets.

Many Irish people have pale skin and freckles...and dark hair. Apparently it's a combo that's as distinctly Irish as red hair and freckles.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Many Irish people have pale skin and freckles...and dark hair. Apparently it's a combo that's as distinctly Irish as red hair and freckles.

Oooh, I know a girl who looks like that. She is so amazingly beautiful, I wanted to look like he so bad when I was growing up.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Many Irish people have pale skin and freckles...and dark hair. Apparently it's a combo that's as distinctly Irish as red hair and freckles.

Oooh, I know a girl who looks like that. She is so amazingly beautiful, I wanted to look like he so bad when I was growing up.

I still want to look like that! I dye my hair red on occasion because I just like the color so much. I looked like a ginger sans freckles because I worked nights and thus had really pale skin.

I've heard people being teased for being ginger, but never anything even slightly amounting to bullying. It's more a thing for friends to latch onto - just like any distinguishing feature, the same way my friends call me blondie. There's no "Kick a Blonde Day"...

Spoiler:

I like gingers. There was this one girl in my PE class who was ginger and she was so pale and her hair was long and she always dressed so well and OH SHE WAS LOVELY. And then there was this guy who absolutely rocked the red hair. He was about six feet tall as a freshman and was muscular as fuck. NOBODY picked on him for being a ginger. And he was a nice person on top of that. So.

Seule wrote:

I've heard people being teased for being ginger, but never anything even slightly amounting to bullying. It's more a thing for friends to latch onto - just like any distinguishing feature, the same way my friends call me blondie. There's no "Kick a Blonde Day"...

Yes, but every day is Blond Joke Day. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Seule wrote:

I've heard people being teased for being ginger, but never anything even slightly amounting to bullying. It's more a thing for friends to latch onto - just like any distinguishing feature, the same way my friends call me blondie. There's no "Kick a Blonde Day"...

You just cursed it into existence. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]