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”. 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.”

Still, on 10 June, an online petition was set up to stop the event going ahead on the grounds that it was unsafe and high risk in the middle of a pandemic. Organiser Natasha Saunders wrote: “A mass gathering is a slap in the face to people who have been tirelessly shielding themselves, the elderly and loved ones from this virus.” 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”. 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’”. 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”.

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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.” Although gingerism may be presented as just “banter”, rights campaigner Meleady, “who is ginger herself”, argued that such so-called jokes can “strip red-haired children “of their positive self-identity and confidence”, said The Telegraph. Khady Gueye, left, and Eleni Eldridge-Tull at Bathurst Park, Lydney, where they arranged their 2020 BLM event. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Observer

Anti-ginger prejudice and bullying is real and harmful, but the idea that it equates to these systems of oppression is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that all forms of prejudice and discrimination are equal and occurring in the same context when they really do not. It assumes that all forms of discrimination are the products of individual bigotry and irrational prejudice rather than structural and institutional divides. 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. But it’s not all gloomy. There is still plenty of support and goodwill in the Forest of Dean for positive action on equality. People are largely kind to one another; community spirit is cited as one of the many positive factors by those asked about the best part of living there. Many say they are on a journey with what can be difficult and uncomfortable work.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.

I'm a proud ginger and I've been abused, insulted and even, as a child, assaulted and bullied for it. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I'm pretty sure I have never been denied a job or the lease on a flat because of my complexion. I haven't been stopped and searched by police 25 times within a year because I am ginger, or casually assumed to be a threat, a criminal or a terrorist. I am not confronted by political parties and movements, some with democratically elected representatives, which would like to see me deported from the country or granted second-class citizenship. 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. 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.”Things didn’t die down. District councillor Di Martin said she was forced to quit her cabinet role after receiving abuse for speaking at the Lydney event. Arguments raged online. But Gueye and Eldridge-Tull were determined not to give up. Within weeks, they had set up a local equality commission to ensure that work would be done in the long term through projects with schools, local charities, the police and the council. 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. 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. 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%. Halle Bailey, who will play Ariel in the new Disney live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Photograph: Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP