Over the past week one of the most popular posts on here has been one I ran on July 29th, about an increase in bigotry directed at redheads in the UK.
Well, I am nothing if not a whore where this blog is concerned, and so I am once more into the fray. Anything for a hit, a page view, or a comment...
Clearly this is a divisive issue. Like many divisive issues, it's one which was never known to me (since I am not red-headed), and might have remained unknown, had I not stumbled across the original article by accident.
It doesn't surprise me that humans have an almost limitless capacity for hatred, at least not anymore. What does surprise me is the seemingly modern phenomena for how small and narrow these prejudices are getting. Some day I fully expect to read about how the coppers are discriminating against the auburns, and/or vice versa.
In the old days a Catholic would hate a Protestant, and that I could almost see because that's a big deal. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. Our forefathers were ignorant and superstitious, and so their religion meant everything to them. Less obvious was how one Protestant could hate another Protestant; I guess I just put it down to the nature of Christianity, which is a kind of bigotry in itself on my part.
Lately, though, identity politics has made everything a potential battleground. People with brown eyes often get coloured contact lenses because they feel discriminated against. So is theirs an actual discrimination or just a matter of perception, like a neurosis? And in the end, does it matter?
I was under the impression that this bias against redheads went out of style at about the same time people stopped fearing black cats and eclipses. It's a funny thing about bigotry, though: you can't kill it. As a minority (or even as a majority, in the case of brown-eyed people) you may think that the matter has been settled, when all of a sudden it's back, only this time it's got a website.
Yet despite reading all these articles I can't seem to find one concrete instance of gingerphobia, only people's impressions of having been discriminated against. Could it be that redheads are simply using their genetic gift as an excuse? Or is that - horror of horrors - merely blaming the victim?
Maybe because one of Canada's pop cultural heroines - Anne of Green Gables - is red-haired, the situation isn't as bad here as it is there. It could also be the vast numbers of Irish-Canadians and Scots-Canadians in Canada, whose mark can often be witnessed still, and vividly at that.
Clearly, if this issue is going to linger in the public debate, I'm going to have to do more research. More reading, more enquiries. Maybe I'll even have to find some redheads and conduct some interviews. In-depth interviews, lasting until the wee hours, involving candlelight and soft music...
Anything for my readers.