And while it has a great deal to say about growing out your hair, it’s really nothing about being ginger or ginger pride.  Lots of reading between the lines of the one pull quote about not hearing shit about his hair.

And as far as growing up a red head pre-South Park, the whisling of the Andy Griffiths Show theme was one of the things that taught me how to fight.

Anyways, this thread is quite the shock to me. I was aware of the South Park episode, of Catherine Tate’s comedy skit of a ginger refuge, but I always thought these were a parody of racism and discrimination, not something that actually existed. One of my best friends as a kid growing up in Montreal was a redhead and a few of my cousins are redheads and I never witnessed anyone making an negative issue of the colour of their hair.

I once had a teacher nickname a fellow red-head in the class “McVitie’s.”
As in, “McVitie’s Ginger Nuts”. Apparently, joking about the colour of a kid’s pubic hair is appropriate.

As a teenager I got an amazing amount of stick for it in the small, decidely un-cosmopolitan town I grew up in.  Aside from the predictable stuff at school, what shocked me was the harassment from total strangers.  I was spat at in the street (a guy stopped his car, wound down the window, shouted “Ginger c**t” and drove off), chased down, and had some random drunk try to bottle me.  Under-evolved individuals loudly stating the colour of my hair in public was pretty much a daily event.  Ultimately I discovered that the solution was not to shave it off (though I dare say the Dormont method worked) but instead to grow it obscenely long.  Weirdly, no-one ever commented on the long pre-Raphaelite curls billowing down my back, loudly declaring my ginger pride,  and the abuse pretty much stopped entirely.  (Though I occassionally got felt up by unsuspecting arseholes in night clubs who mistook me for a woman.) 

I’ve heard loads of theories to explain it – long festering resentment towards Celts/Vikings, that perhaps redheads represent a poor genetic choice if you’re European, or, as one friend put it, “it just looks a bit freaky doesn’t it?”  Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to result in any “proper” discrimination – I’ve never heard of someone being refused a job on account of their red hair for instance – and as a result, it seems a bit churlish to complain.  Except when offered an opportunity to do so, like this one…  (Of course,  Dormont’s article seems to be chiefly about the Joy of Hair, rather than the horrors of red headedness, but still.  It’s fun to off load…)

Other observations:
* As a kid, I can’t tell you how many times I pointed out to well meaning adults that my hair was orange, not red, and that carrot tops are actually green.  Stupid grown-ups.
* I don’t know why, but a number of black people in my life (from very different backgrounds) seemed to think it absolutely hilarious to call me Opie.   I’ve always assumed it was an Andy Griffith/Ron Howard thing, but it’s weird how only black folks seem to use that one.
* No, I am not (nor am I related to) Lexi Lalas, Bill Walton or the “comedian” known as Carrot Top.

All of those inane interactions aside, I’ve never really had a problem with my hair.  Heck, I’ve had a red pony tail and a red Jew-fro at various points, and I’m still rocking a red beard.   The only real downside is that I was forced to give up the dream of being a bank robber in a Zorro mask.  “Who was that masked man?!”  “Um, it was the dude with the big mop of curly red hair.”

For that matter, here its more like a form of misogyny. Blonde guys rarely get teased, and blonde jokes (in general) are variations on the theme of “women are stupid.”

I think the English temperment requires an enemy.

What the hell? At first I thought it was just a parody of racism (the SP thing, of course, but Ginger hatred, in general), but I think people are serious about this in the UK.

ETA – Re: why do people make fun of red heads?

Because they are different – the same with anything.

Now seriously. Mock people because their hair is red? That´s plain stupid. Kids today need more spanking, less Ritalin.