Gingerism

Some woman is bellyaching because Tesco stocked a card saying that Santa does love ginger kids, despite the colour of their hair:

"I thought maybe it was just me because I am a mother of kids with red hair, but a lot of my friends and other people I know, we are absolutely disgusted"

Look, I'm going to try to be nice here. Nice and tolerant. I'm going to try to use my skills of empathy (limited though they are) and not tell this woman to shut her cakehole and get a grip. No, I'm going to say that maybe people could take this as an insult, particularly if their kids are ginger. No parent likes someone else dissing their kids; that is pretty much a given.

"Society comes down hard on how people look and there are so many children these days who are bullied because of how they look."

Again, very true. People are bullied because of how they look. Of course, that bullying seems to be a constant of human interaction - it occurs whether or not Tesco sells a fucking card with a shite joke on it, but again, I'm trying to give Whiney McWhine this lady the benefit of the doubt here because maybe the card could encourage bullying.

I tell you what, being empathetic to the pathetic really does elevate the blood pressure somewhat. But my empathy dissolves at this point:

"If the card had been about an overweight child then the shop would have been shut down, and so would the people who made the card."

Oh, for fuck's sake, stop talking total bollocks. That is just absolute nonsense. If the joke had been about an overweight child, nothing would have happened. Unless some highly strung busy body with a child nick-named "Chunks" because of its ample girth happened upon it, at which point we would see the same tedious farago of said busy-body enjoying fifteen minutes of completely underserved fame, followed by a disinterested apology from Tesco. The sort of things that would close as store down are poisoning people with their products or a massive fire. Dissing the gingers or the fatties because of a joke on a Christmas card is the sort of thing that Tesco don't give a fuck about, in the grand scheme of things. You know what? They've probably already forgotten about it.

Your kids' red hair doesn't make them special; nor does it make them a particular target for bullies. Even if they had a completely different colour in their hair, their peers would find something to mock them about. Because here's the truth, fact fans; teasing and bullying is going to happen; it is just a question of what is going to be the reason given for that teasing/bullying. It could be hair colour, it could be weight. It could be having a mother who drags her kids into the national news based on a cheap joke in a Christmas card. It is an unpleasant part of life, but something that has to be dealt with. Using the simple method of "getting over it."

I'll leave you with the thoughts of the ever great Daily Mash:

But Davinia Phillips, a mother of three gingers from York, has complained to Tesco insisting the card contravenes her right to have everything exactly the way she wants it all the time and to never be annoyed by anything.

Quite.