Thursday, October 14, 2010

Gingerly Negotiating Your Rage on the Internet


Do you know what Internet? It makes me so happy when you send me emails about your rage. I quite like getting emails in general actually, but I especially love the rage. This is possibly only because it makes me feel like I am not the only furious psychopath on the Internet, but the heart wants what the heart wants. So you guys should keep emailing me, because it makes me feel like I am reuniting with my many long lost siblings of fury. As if we were all adopted out by one extremely angry mother, and now we are finding each other through our shared distaste for idiocy on the Internet. Although, I think I'll stick with my own mum because she has a crystal necklace that spells out CUNT and she doesn't mind when I blog about cum towels on the Internet.

In the latest installment of Your Rage and My Blog, we are going to talk about this little gem here that I was sent by my pal A:

ginger hate

And A, as a sibling of Internet fury, was offended by this. She said:

'Ginger' hate has to be one of the stupidest possible sorts of discrimination. Its a hair colour! Come the fuck on. It is just senseless bullying. I think hair anywhere in the strawberry blonde- violent red spectrum is awesome. Naturally red headed people have the loveliest hair, and often wonderful pale skin freckly complexions.

People really are idiots.

Funnily enough, I happen to agree with A. And not just because I am biased. I was almost on board there with Izzy because it was a Harry Potter joke, and I do like to think of myself as bearing an uncanny resemblance to Madam Rosmerta. Almost on board, but not quite. Because I didn't find it that funny when a friend in first year explained that you call a "hot" red head a unicorn. And I didn't find this funny either:

strawberry

Decidedly no laughs there. Any possible points that I might have assigned for critical analysis of Twilight (alternatively known as Stephanie Myer's Pro Life Allegory of Stockholm Syndrome) have been counter balanced by Izzy's casual homophobia. And the strawberry blonde thing? How awkward. God forbid, letting somebody describe their body using the terms that they choose. :L indeed.

I mean, you guys probably know this by now, right? I like to be offended by stuff. And yes, blah blah, ginger hate is just a joke! I should probably calm down or get over it or lighten up or take a chill pill, or something else completely dismissive. But surely, by now I'm on record as being completely humourless and a total boner killer. So humourless, in fact, that I was one of the 700 New Zealanders who made gleefully made official complaints about Paul Henry because I'm just not that into state funded racism. So bitterly humourless, that I just don't think that ginger jokes are that funny. I don't think it's that funny to imitate all of the other types of discrimination by joking about hair colour. If it's that funny then why don't we all play a little light hearted round of eugenics? Or maybe we could sit down to a game of Khmer Rouge? Lynch mob role play anyone?

I know. Nobody is dying. It's a hair colour. But why imitate this shit? It's still bullying. It's still body policing. It's these kind of jokes that normalize how divisive our society can be. Sometimes bullying leads to stuff. And ginger hate has lead to some pretty crap stuff. And seriously, if Perez Hilton says he is going to stop bullying people, there has got to be hope for us all.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

7 comments:

  1. One thing, I wouldn't rely on the Daily Mail for anything.

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  2. Thanks for introducing me to another form of body policing I didn't know existed? :p Here I thought it was the other way around and redheads were *more* prized! (Or is that just in Robert Heinlien novels?)

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  3. It must just be among those novels and amongst those reared on Anne of Green Gables, like myself!

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  4. Ally, thankyou. People judge me on something I have no power over nor am ever willing to change. Worse - when I explain my unhappiness even close friends tell me to 'get over it' or say its my own fault cause I give a good reaction. I love myself but thanks to people's bigoted concerns over MY appearance I spent a time questioning whether in fact I was sub-human. The teenage years were problematic when it was announced by some that 'doing a ginger' was the lowest one could get. Thanks, guys - now I can't have sex either?! I wish people would reconsider their use of the word 'ginga,' unless someone wants to explain to me how it is any less derogotory than any other racist slur.
    I am now growing my beautiful red armpit hair in defiance, and embracing my difference; although I still obviously offend people, even by the mere fact of walking down the street in some instances. Fuck them.

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  5. I love red hair, have wanted it all my life. I've never understood "ginger loathing". That said, even though I've never understood it, doesn't mean I'm not going to stand up and say that it sucks and it's hateful and that it has to stop.

    Great post.

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  6. omg lol! im ginger! and i have never got bullied for it? a few times but thats how my friends how its called banter;-) i agreee its only a hair colour but i love the fact people take it seriously!:-L

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