I’m so white “ginger” from Alabama
Cindy,
Decatur, Al.
We can’t change things but I hope blondes and redheads always remain, I hate what is being lost, I hate being hated for being white I guess now we know!
Is it because I’m a ginger?
Seven,
Summerville, GA.
I am a redhead from Visalia CA. I moved to Georgia with my family and after the move I realized things weren’t going to be the same anymore. People often poke fun at me saying that I have no soul or that I would take theirs. Just because I am a redhead does not mean that I would harm anyone. People ask me why I don’t just dye my hair? I choose not to dye my hair because it is who I am and I am not changing for anyone. Life would be much easier if true equality existed, but now I know it never can.
Pale freckled redhead burned by words
Marie Farrell,
Brooklyn, NY.
I grew up in San Diego, California where the sun shines all the time. I was the kid that never tanned, just freckled and burned. I was also raised by an Irish mother so there was a lot less love than fights and tension. I recall a day when I bravely went to school in shorts and was destroyed by the words of a black girl who said “You need to get a tan”! I was often looked at weird because of the pale skin, being told to tan as if it were that easy. I was told by a girl in my gymnastics class “You have freckles on your knees,” as if that was such an odd thing. I was called “Annie”, “Pippi”, “Strawberry Shortcake,” and later I was called more inappropriate names like “Fire Muff” and “Ginger”. Since having cancer and losing my hair it has grown back less red, but I feel I am always and will always be a redhead on the inside and out; always feeling like a fish out of water in a hot, sunny climate, being called names that most people might not think are racist, but no matter what they thought it stung. It burned me more than the awful sunburns I grew up with. As an adult I take pride in my “spots” and my pale skin, in my sort-of red hair, and my Irish heritage, but sometimes those words still burn
.
Like you, gingers do have souls.
Katelyn Nicole Volz
Hemet, CA
“You know they say Gingers have no souls right?” “A Ginger gains a freckle every time they steal a soul.” “Do the carpets match the drapes?” Does ANYONE know how tired I am of hearing that? Yes, my hair is red, yes it’s natural, and yes I am Irish. Does it really matter what my appearance says about me? I work hard, have a job, dress appropriately, and yes, I do have a soul. EVERY HUMAN DOES.
Shout out to CBU HIS311
We were equal until you knew.
Jose “Jay” Zarate,
Soquel, CA
My skin is pale, my hair normally just light brown, yet in the summer you’re always eager to point out my streaks of red. It’s funny how you focus on that, how the contrast seems to shock you every time the sunlight reveals it or starts to make it apparent. Or when my facial hair grows and the picture changes, around the same time UV rays start to color me golden and the tiny differences start to click. To matter. To change things.
You thought I was like you. Called me a friend, a coworker, a classmate so much easier than you did. You “knew” “me”, an assumption that sprung to life as you finally thought you could let your guard down. My teacher, my childhood friend, a scared transfer student I shared my time with as you silently tested the waters. Eyeing me closely as you sent wave after wave of jokes and comments carefully designed to try me.
When I was a child I’d ignore those ripples until the tide would come to crush me, let those off-color comments slide as you let them fly. Too naive to understand the full weight of them beyond the discomfort I felt, the confusion, the panic as I wondered if you knew I was brown too.
I know now you didn’t, too focused on the narrow caricature of color the world believed us to be that my hard-to-explain half shades went unnoticed. Ignored until confronted. A simple glance deeming them white by the faculty, the student body, and the hiring team that would only interview me when I went by Jay instead of Jose. Because that’s who you can trust, right? Because that is who I am…right?
Right?
Why can you only trust me when you see me as you. Why am I only equal before the summer comes around, or before I slip up and speak anything but English a little too well. Before I tell you about my family or the fact I’m not even from here in the first place. Why do you look at me, treat me, and talk to me differently before you knew?
Because then you know. And suddenly I’m “almost white” until you remember I’m “a Mexican too”. Suddenly all the jokes about landscaping, or “la Migra”, or the jokes about being deported are okay because we’re “friends”. Even though I can’t come over because your grandpa would flip if he knew. Suddenly I’m google translating in class, until the white Spanish teacher Ms. Smith decides she knows more than me about my own culture than I do because I don’t use “vosotros”.
Because suddenly you know, and no matter how good my english is, how long I’ve been here, or how good of friends we are…now you know.
Now I’m different, no matter what I do.
I don’t owe you my body.
Emily ” Em ” Arrington,
Lord Fairfax Community College, VA
I chose these 6 words because as someone who was born a ginger female, I get cat-called every time I go out. Always by older men and never by anyone my age. I am 19 years old and I have experienced this for YEARS. The first time was when I was only 13 years old. These men are in their late 40s and 50s asking a CHILD for a lick of their ice cream cone and looking them up and down. This is the reason why I never go anywhere by myself anymore. They think that just because they say something “nice” I owe them something. I don’t. It’s MY body.
From a white teenage girl’s perspective
Victoria N.
Fortson, GA
My ancestors came to America just like many others. Just because I am white, does not mean my family “owned” “slaves”. When an African American girl says to me “you’re so lucky to have that hair” or “I would pay a lot for some of your hair”, it makes me mad. Hair or material appearances should not be what you see when you look at someone. It’s about what is on the inside, not the color of one’s hair or skin! I have strawberry-blonde hair so I get called a “ginger” from all races. According to some people, I only have “half a soul”.
Being called a ginger hurts just as much as being called the N word. I like to drink Starbucks so I’m a “Typical white girl’? That term is degrading to teenagers like me. Just because I am white, does not make me privileged. My dad only makes about $30,000 a year. My mother is unemployed and homeless! Being white does not make someone racist or privileged. Do you see colleges or scholarships for “white” people? No, but you see them for African Americans. Also, to the African American boys that get mad when a white girl says she has a preference: For MOST of us, it’s not because you have dark skin, it’s because our mind is not physically attracted to you. Stop calling us racist or our DNA makeup. Our generation only has control of the future, not the past, so get over it.
I’m not white. I’m ginger.
John Stinchcomb,
Indianapolis, IN.
It would be awfully boring if we all looked alike. Like music & art the broader the spectrum the better.
People say: gingers have no soul
Amy Hartgrove,
Kansas City, MO.
Not a Race, Still a Human
Cameron Warren,
Downingtown, PA.
I’m a very Irish child, and being proud of that has always been hard due to the fact I have red hair and freckles. While most say, “oh but you’re white, whats the problem” the problem is just that. I have been bullied and teased almost my whole life and not being able to fight it because your own race degrades you, but if I were to say not to be mean to “gingers” they say you’re not a race, sometimes they say not people at all, and to just deal with it. I’m stuck at a cross roads where many sub-groups have found themselves, where they cannot find comfort in their own but can’t seek understanding of those who have it “worse”.
“It’s because you have no soul.”
Anne Tobin,
Normal, IL.
Ever since I was thirteen, I’ve had to deal with the flack of my hair color. After South Park aired their “Ginger” episode, I hear ginger jokes every day at least once. When I enter a room or when I try and talk. “Shut up, Ginger.” “No one cares ’cause you’re a ginger.” Any time I flubbed up a word, tripped over something, or forgot my homework, it was because I have no soul. I grew to hate my hair, my one defining feature and I wanted to change it all because of their incessant jokes and teasing. I would wear hats to hide my hair and tie it up to make it less noticeable. I would cry to my mom about dying my hair. I even saved up money for my new hair color. Of course my mother would not allow me to dye my hair, so I just had to roll with the punches. Yes I know, I’m white, and I might not have the most room to talk, but it did affect me. It still does. I hate the very word “ginger” and get insulted whenever anyone calls me that name.
You’ve got to be Irish, right?
Benjamin Bean
Glen Mills, PA
I wouldn’t say that growing up as a red-head (or “ginger,” though I didn’t hear that term until a few years ago) was extremely difficult. A few kids called me “carrot-top” and some other names, but it never amounted to bullying. But I didn’t know too many people with the same hair color, and I have been told that we comprise the smallest minority on earth (whatever that means). Many people see my hair color as a sign of my Irish ancestry, and although this is true, it underlines the experience of many white children in America: we may have ancestors from several different places around the world, but to answer any questions about our own ethnicity is difficult. I can’t label myself with any of the ethnic identities that many of my friends have, and this bothered me for much of my youth. As an anthropologist, I refuse to embrace the concept of race, so I only identify as “white” in terms of phenotype. I went through a phase in my teens when I explored my Irish heritage, and there is certainly much to learn and enjoy from Irish culture; however, this is no more “my” culture than any of my French, English, Swiss-German, Swedish, and German roots about which I know almost nothing at all. I just happen to look more Irish than anything else, because of that one phenotype that stands out from the rest. It took me some time to realize it, but while it may be nice to have several generations of ethnic traditions handed down to celebrate, I’m not missing anything by being less connected to my Irish roots than I look like I should be. I can make my own culture, I can appreciate others, and I can celebrate the fact that my family comes from a long line of people who overcame their own unique circumstances and learned to love people from other cultures in the process.
Ginger? Sorry, I Don’t Speak Ignorance.
Azalea
Grand Rapids, MI
I’ve made fun of my entire life for my pale skin and red hair. It’s honestly really annoying and once the whole “ginger” thing is brought up I no longer want to talk to that person anymore because it represents their ignorance and the fact that they can’t just accept that I’m a redhead without using a derogatory name. I can imagine that’s so many people feel when an attribute about their person is different that the “norm” and it’s very unnecessary. Our differences make us distinctive and awesome.
Be white, but not too white
Carissa Stouwie
Ann Arbor, MI
Understanding Race Project- University of Michigan
My butt is very sun burnt, and not willingly. I am a ginger. I have white skin, some could even say translucent. I tan so that I can blend in, so that people don’t ask if I am albino, or if the carpet matches the drapes, or how I feel about having no soul. I tan so I’m not harassed. But tanning doesn’t do much for my hair.
Before my grandpa died, he told me never to change my hair. It was unique, beautiful, and everyone would be envious. So I don’t. I tan, but don’t dye my hair. I burn my skin knowing the possible consequence of cancer, but I won’t risk dyeing my hair for fear I’ll never get it back. I have been told in my sociology class that being white is prestigious among society, but I am very white and I am made fun of. All. The. Time. I feel that there is stratification among the white race. So I need to be less white. And to top it all off, I’m technically strawberry blond.
