Ginger Lives Matter Ginger Red Head Person T-Shirt

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Now 25 and on the verge of finishing her English degree at Manchester University, Gueye has become a local community organiser and is more visible than ever in the town where she was born and grew up.

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”. 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’”. 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. 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. 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.”For that matter, if we ever did get married, neither she nor I have grown up in a world where I could be raped with impunity as the effective property of the non-ginger party. Nobody would have ever denied me a mortgage under my own name, as happened during our parents' generation, or asked to talk to the non-ginger of the house about technical or mechanical matters. I haven't heard any politicians or newspaper headlines, this week or any other, assume that if one of us stays at home to look after the kids it will inevitably be the redhead. The reported incidents included doing an internet search for “gingerphobia” during a lesson, which “led to a child in the class with red hair being teased by his classmates and getting upset”. 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.

I think it speaks volumes that BAME people are still willing to protest for their human rights even though they are disproportionately affected by the pandemic,” wrote Gueye. “Maybe this should highlight the severity of the inequality in our society”. 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”. 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.

Some anti-racist activists have spent the last year explaining that racism isn’t simply prejudice based on how one looks, but a system, much like capitalism, communism, and socialism, put in place by those in power around a specific set of ideas – in this case, racist ones. Being white does not mean one is more likely to be criminalised by the police, or that one is more likely to work in lower-paid frontline work or that one is more likely to be exposed to and die of Covid as a result.

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.” 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. Alastair Moffat of ScotlandsDNA, which carried out the analysis, told the news agency that showing how many Brits have the ginger gene could help end the prejudice that “blights the lives” of many redheads.We want tangible change,” says Gueye, “and doing that with our community happens at a grassroots level.” The organisation is funded for the next 18 months by independent foundation Thirty Percy. Earlier this month, Gueye and Eldridge-Tull ran for Labour in district and local council elections respectively, determined to make change through local policy. Neither won. “But we realise that if we want to make real, systemic change, we have to do it through policy,” said Gueye. “And that involves being part of the council to push for equality.” 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.” 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. 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.”