The first time I heard discrimination towards people with red hair was in the show "South Park". The clip of that episode can be found in Youtube. Eric was doing a informative/hate speech entitled "Ginger Kids: Children with Red Hair, Light Skin and Freckles". He describes children with red hair having a disease called "gingervitis" and that they "have no souls".
His friend Kyle who happens to have red hair is outraged with Eric's false accusations and, worst of all, his classmates believe every word of it! I admit that I found Eric's comments hilarious but that's the magic of "South Park", they insult everybody.
Gingerism. A word associated with racism towards people with red hair. It may sound funny but the BBC points out that this is a very real problem resulting in anti-red hair hate crimes in the UK. I really don't see the difference between gingerism and racism. So one's about skin color and one's about hair color.
Less than one percent of the human race has red hair. It occurs mainly with people from northern and western European populations and their descendants - and at low frequencies throughout other parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. It is associated with those in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, as well as in England, particularly Cornwall. Scotland is the country with the highest proportion of redheads in the world. Thirteen percent of the Scottish population have red hair and approximately 40 percent carry the recessive, so-called "ginger gene". Typically those with red hair find the term "ginger" an insult.
Historians suggest that contemporary anti-red-head sentiment largely stems from the 19th-century clash between the British and the Irish. In other countries redheads will get teased at school, and it usually stops when they become adults. But in the UK women get stereotyped and red-haired men take much of the worst abuse. Treatment of red-haired children in school ranges from mild taunts to grim persecution. Surprisingly, evidence of gingerism can be found as far back as the Egyptians, who used to sacrifice red-heads. They are also associated with witches and vampires in Europe.
The most extreme case of anti-red-head sentiment was the 2003 stabbing of a red-headed 20-year-old man. In recent news a red haired family was forced to move out of the neighborhood. The Commission for Racial Equality do not claim responsibility on monitoring racial discrimination towards these people.
I wonder what those people think about Prince Harry or Rupert Grint. A few famous examples of people with red hair are Mary Magdalene, Adam, Judas and even Jesus.
Wait... what?