Someone recently came up to me and said, “HEY! Gingers unite!”
To this I had no reply because I had no idea who this person was, and she was not a ginger.
For those who are may be out of the contemporary lingo loop, a ginger is a term for a person with red hair. It originated as a derogatory name meaning soulless day-walker. However, much like the fathers of the American Revolution did with the song “Yankee Doodle,” we redheads have taken the term meant to deride us and adopted it as our own. We now use it with pride.
Nevertheless, a few blaring ginger misconceptions must be set right and some facts must be brought to the table.
1) We do have souls. It’s true; I swear. We laugh and cry just like the rest of you.
2) Our hair is not orange. I repeat our hair is NOT orange! It is red. We don’t go around declaring blondes are really yellow. Please show us the same respect. If you still hold that it is not red, please use a more technical color. The only acceptable names are auburn, copper or a combination of the two. Strawberry blonde is also acceptable for some shades.
3) People who are not of Irish decent can have red hair. Yes, you read that correctly. All denominations of Celtic peoples also carry the ginger gene; this is includes the Scots, Welsh and even English. Now you would say that makes sense and you could have figured that out yourself. But did you know that some Italians and other central European nationalities are known for their auburn locks? Fact: some northern Italians are prone to be gingers. Case and point: my mother. Not a drop of Celtic blood in her and she looks like leprechaun.
4) It doesn’t matter how well you dye it, if your ginger comes from a bottle you are not a ginger! Sorry everyone, the truth hurts sometimes. Now, I am not saying the dyed hair looks bad; some shades actually come out quite nice and red highlights do wonders … but it’s not the same. A bottle job is a bottle job. If it’s dyed it doesn’t fly.
5) The most important statement of this article: natural redheads comprise only four percent of the world’s population. This means that out of 6.8 billion human beings walking this planet, only 2.72 million are redheads. We could be a minority group in and of ourselves. Some would worry, being such a small percentage, that we are a dying breed. On the contrary! We are a small group yes, but we are unique and proud of it.
We are not going anywhere.
Gingers unite!
Copyright Aspiring Novelist. All rights reserved.
April 21st, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Haha this was such a cute entry. I love my friend’s red hair! I think it’s lovely.
oof. It’s been a while since I visited you blog. So much to read! But exams are finally over so I can devote some of my time against to following all my favourite bloggers.
How’s your writing going, by the way?
April 21st, 2010 at 11:52 pm
First, I am jealous that your exams are over. I still have three more weeks of torture.
Second, thank you. As you can tell I am very proud of my hair.
Third, I am flattered to be considered a favorite! (The feeling is mutual by the way
) My writing is … coming. And by that I mean there has been no significant progress with any novels but now that I have two giant papers out of the way I can devote more time to them. At least my assignments and paper articles always get pounded out which is better than nothing, I suppose.
April 21st, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Hiya kiddo-
And I always thought ginger was simply what you didn’t eat with sushi. Is that image you? Wonderful image. Nicely done. Do me a flavor and check out my most recent rant. It made some folks mad I need to know why. Thanks
April 21st, 2010 at 11:53 pm
HAHAHA! That’s a good one, I’ll try and incorporate it in the article
April 21st, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Go Gingers! I have to say, you guys are unique and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted my main character on my new story to be a ‘ginger’
April 21st, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Woo hoo! Gotta love the gingers. We add so much more flavor (pun intended). I’d like to see more of this story …
April 22nd, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Haha. This post made me laugh.
And so informative. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m one of those people who thought only people who are Irish had red hair. I guess we’re all guilty of our own ignorance. By the way, I love Amy Adams! What a wonderful actress. Throughout your post I kept on picturing her playing Amelia Earhart, and bobbing her red locks around all spunky and adorable. Have you seen that sequel to A Night At The Museum? I actually liked. She was a highlight in that movie for sure.
Well, girl, you got moxy!
April 23rd, 2010 at 7:27 pm
I love that movie! As a history buff and a huge fan of Amy Adams, I dragged my friends to the midnight showing (to appropriately go along with the spirit of the movie).
August 25th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Love it – great to see gingers taking a stand! Check out my blog gingerfightback.com for extreme ginger nonsense!