Ginger Lives Matter Ginger Red Head Person T-Shirt

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Meleady called for action to protect young redheads, “not just from gingerism or anti-red haired prejudice and abuse from other children, but from school and other settings members who model the bullying and abuses to red-haired children”. Now 25 and on the verge of finishing her English degree at Manchester University, Gueye has become a local community organiser and is more visible than ever in the town where she was born and grew up.

The reported incidents included doing an internet search for “gingerphobia” during a lesson, which “led to a child in the class with red hair being teased by his classmates and getting upset”. If Tim Minchin is right, only a ginger can call another ginger ginger. By the same token, perhaps only a ginger can effectively rebut the argument that so-called gingerism should be considered a form of discrimination, or even a hate-crime, equivalent to racism or homophobia. That case has been made often, most recently by Nelson Jones in the New Statesman, who in a blog post last week detailed a depressing litany of murders, assaults and suicides that have been linked to anti-redhaired prejudice. Likewise, no one has been putting up posters recently calling for me to be executed for gingerness. There are no respected religious leaders telling me that my very existence is sinful and that I'm heading for an eternity in hell. Nobody wishes to bar me from marrying my partner, wherever and however we choose, because she has (peculiarly, I will be the first to admit) fallen in love with a ginger. In 2013, genetic researchers believed they had “developed a powerful tool to combat the bullying of some redheads in Britain”, Reuters reported. The Scottish team discovered that as many as one in three Britons carry red-head genes, meaning that even if they are not redheads themselves, “their future children or grandchildren could be”.

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Tremlett said she would have joined in the event had it not been during a pandemic. But when asked about racist aspects to the abuse the organisers had endured, Tremlett replied: “I think some of the comments coming from supporters of the event were actually racist in themselves. They were called ‘white trash’, they were called Nazis and all sorts.” On 17 June, Harper, who may be best known as the immigration minister responsible for sending vans encouraging illegal immigrants to “go home” around parts of London, appeared to encourage an online pile-on against Eldridge-Tull, who had a tenth of his 30,000 followers, and demanded she apologise to the local community for tweeting: “The reaction to the BLM protest in Lydney has brought to light so much support, but so much hate. I love where I live, but I’m ashamed of my neighbours, and ashamed to be part of a community that has so widely endorsed and exacerbated racial hatred.” Between 1% and 2% of the global population have red hair, but the figure is much higher in England, at 6%, and higher still in Scotland, at 13%. And worse, it can lead to school refusal, health problems, self-injurious behaviour and even children wanting and trying to die by suicide,” added Meleady, who was awarded an MBE in 2000 for her services to children.

Yet the racial justice debate became so sore locally that even now, a year later, interviewees bristle at the mention of BLM. Some become deeply uncomfortable and are unwilling to give voice to their feelings on the subject. Even those who declare themselves as anti-racist allies later withdraw their consent for being mentioned, for fear of “any negative association”. One woman messaged: “We are a positive [business] and positive people and have found our community to be the same”, as if discussion on achieving racial and social justice might not actually be a positive thing. She told the Sheffield Star that she had recently witnessed a case of “a family physically abusing their baby for having red hair as they equated her red hair as being the ‘mark of the devil’”. I became complicit in allowing it to continue, by being ‘Ha ha! Good joke guys,’” says Gueye, flatly. “But when you grow up in an area that is so predominantly white and are already made to feel different, you just do your best to fit in. The ideal is don’t call out racism. Let it slide. You become so accustomed to it, it becomes your norm.”

Gueye was supposed to consider it an affectionate send-off; it was written by her own friends. It was 2012, the year Britain proudly celebrated its optimistic and diverse Olympic Games opening ceremony, or as Conservative MP Aidan Burley would call it, “multicultural crap”. Some have gone further, arguing that the UK's uniquely aggressive gingerism is indeed a form of racism, rooted in anti-Celtic, specifically anti-Irish, prejudice and therefore related to centuries-old matters of imperialism, religious bigotry and war. There may be some truth in that, but those roots are now buried as deep as the recessive genetic mutations in our MC1R proteins. Other forms of oppression are not only current, they are woven into the very fabric of our society.

The research was published months after of a teenager took her own life after teased about her red hair. Following her death, the father of 15-year-old Helena Farrell, from Cumbria, “demanded discrimination against ginger people to be made a hate crime”, said The Telegraph. I think it speaks volumes that BAME people are still willing to protest for their human rights even though they are disproportionately affected by the pandemic,” wrote Gueye. “Maybe this should highlight the severity of the inequality in our society”. But away from the big cities and the displays of solidarity in more diverse towns, Gueye and Eldridge-Tull were aware that conversation in rural areas required a different approach. Anger, tension and outright abuse boiled over online as a counter-petition to support the event was organised. It got twice the number of signatures, leading Saunders to say that hers was more valid by claiming “90% of [signatories] are from Lydney, can you say yours was?” Later, she would make Eldridge-Tull gasp by posting: “He couldn’t breathe, now we can’t speak”, in a reference to Floyd’s murder by a police officer.Khady Gueye, left, and Eleni Eldridge-Tull at Bathurst Park, Lydney, where they arranged their 2020 BLM event. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Observer