It is often the case in life that we as humans only come to appreciate the things we take for granted when we no longer have them. This can be applied to the current downward spiral of Western civilisation, but in this article I want to focus on a specific undertone that is very pronounced across Europe and the rest of the Occident. This, seemingly innocuous, soft-racism, is the antagonism towards red-haired people or gingers.

It happens in seemingly innocuous settings, in kindergarten, at middle school, in high school especially. It’s usually just waved away as a harmless bit of fun, a bit of bullying to toughen people up. Although this all may seem like a bit of a silly thing to write about, it is noteworthy that prejudices against Europeans exist and are being amplified across the world, right now, and we would do well to get over our old prejudices amongst each other so that we can work together to persevere.

“Gingers have no soul”

Some say that this myth popped up in England and parts of the US, as an anti-Irish sentiment. Others attribute the claim to a South Park episode where Cartman gives an actual albeit cartoonish hate speech against gingers, describing them as being disgusting, inhuman, unable to survive in the sunlight and having no souls.

It’s a much more recent phenomenon than most people think.

Historic Persecution

During the Middle Ages, a child born with red hair was thought to have been conceived during ‘unclean’ sex, or during menstruation.

Redheads were particularly persecuted during the witch trials in Europe between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the colour was linked to the devil and the pale skin most redheads have was seen as deathly and unnatural.

Foreign Influences

It is interesting to note that red headed mummies have been found across parts of Asia, a particularly famous case was the discovery of such mummies in the Tarim basin area of China. DNA analysis traces the genes of these mummies back to Western Europe.

So while we bicker about and mock each other, foreigners are taking advantage of that and stealing our people away. This has been happening for a very long time. The Barbary slave trade is the most obscene example of this, but it continues to happen to this day. People smugglers find it easier to kidnap people from the Continent when there’s a migration crisis going on.

Red is Beautiful

We ought to appreciate the diversity of our people, gingers are a part of that and probably the most unique part at that.

They are only about 2% of the world’s population with most of them being from Scotland and Ireland.

Their hair doesn’t go grey.

They are more likely to be left handed.

Jokes aside we need to let old hatreds and prejudices die so that we are able to survive into the future.