Friday 4 March 2011

Red head prejudice rife in British primary schools

Gingerism.com has received two reports in the space of this week in relation to red head prejudice in British primary schools. The first comes from the mother of a 6 year old girl.
I have a 6 year old daughter, during a school lesson about tolerance and accepting differences in people, the teacher singled her out to point out she had "ginger" hair as opposed to the rest of the class who had blonde or brown. She answered - Mrs G, the polite way to say that is redhead, to which the teacher replied, No, you're not the colour of my jumper (red) YOU ARE GINGER. I'm sure, to the amusement of the rest of the kids in the class.

I complained to the head teacher but was basically told, it wasn't said in malice and I should get over it.
The second comes from a primary school teacher, who retold the story of a red headed child's response to being singled out for the colour of her hair.
The class of 4 year olds were in circle time. The discussion was about how everyone is different, with a focus on how people have different eyes and hair colour. During this discussion, one child pointed at a red headed girl and said "yeah and she's ginger!".

The next day, the red headed girl came back into class, having cut her own hair off the night before.
If your goal in life is to stand up against all kinds of prejudice, you should consider earning a degree in social justice and find a job that can help prevent social exclusions and promote equality.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad this site is still going.

Well done guys.

Michelle said...

So sad. Although, I do not really support the term "gingerism," as I think that calling someone a ginger is, in and of itself, offensive. I'm sad that the term has gained such popularity.