I can't quite recall the first time I heard anybody use the word "ginger", but I remember how wrong and not-allowed it seemed. I must have been close to 10 years old, maybe older, and all I wanted to do was go home and quietly repeat the word to myself. It wrapped so pleasantly around my tongue and gently slid off the tip like a fried egg out of a pan. I hadn't really known any gingers at the time. There were a few of them at my school, but they mostly flocked together so I had no way of identifying with them.
I met my future friend, Jonny, at a youth retreat when I was in the seventh grade. I didn't pay much attention to him at that time; not knowing anyone, I had latched on to his friend, Mike, and paid only a minimal amount of attention to Jonny. It was the first time I'd really ever joined in conversation with a ginger, though, and I was surprised at how normal he was. Following that retreat, I can't say I started going out of my way to befriend any other gingers, but I certainly wasn't as quick to judge or avoid them.
I didn't see Jonny until two years later, when a mutual friend suggested him as a drummer for a band I was trying to put together. We immediately began bonding over our love for music. As well as a friend, I gained a window into what life was like for his people. I would often tease and affectionately call him a ginger, to which he would weakly protest, but never take offense. However, following one particularly scathing session of mockery on a day trip to Edmonton, he finally broke down and admitted that "the ginger thing" was funny now and then, but that I had to consider the history of the word and what it meant in a social context. I had to admit that at that time in my life, I'd never been fully conscious of the meanings of words. To me, they were just collections of letters, but Jonny was right. Over time, the Gs and the I and the E and the R and the N have come to represent so much more. They have been used to oppress and subdue. In Jonny's case alone, years of verbal abuse and ritual bullying at the hands of those monsters we call schoolchildren had transformed a simple word into fears and insecurities. In a slightly less political context, having grown up somewhat overweight, the tear stains in my childhood pillow slips can attest to the effect words like "fatty" and "chubchub" can have on a person. I can only image the torment gingers have gone through to be something like my miserable, tubby little broken heart multiplied by a thousand.
I became increasingly aware of when and how "ginger" wormed its way into my life and the lives of my friends. I commonly heard people justifying their use of the word with the excuse that gingers commonly use it within their own community. We really have to respect that if these people, as a group, choose to reclaim the word as their own, it doesn't mean the rest of us have a right to its use. Even as the friend of a ginger, I have not earned the right to take a word with such a storied past and toss it around as if I am some working type at a party and it is a joke about lawyers. One does not gain the right to perform life-endangering surgeries by cutting oneself while shaving, and one has not earned the right to called a ginger a ginger simply by having seen one on TV.
I can't claim to be perfect, though. On the first day of one of my second-year college classes, I was talking to a friend and a ginger sat down at the desk immediately in front of us. There had been one in a class we'd taken the previous semester and I couldn't help muttering, "Look, there's one in every class. The good ol' token ginger."
I guess I'd been loud enough for even the professor to have heard me. She called me out on my attitude and I apologized to the young man, but I regret that I continued to harass him in both my writing exercises—the kind that get read aloud—and conversation—the kind that is not quiet or in any way inconspicuous.
As I got to know my classmate better, I began recalling Jonny's wise advice all those years ago in his mom's Impala. Looking inside myself, I knew that I had no issue with this ginger. I had no problem with any gingers. How is it that a prejudice can be pulled over our heads like a scratchy, woolen sweater and we just accept it without protest? So some angry people a long time ago were biased against certain sections of the color wheel. How did that become any of my business? I'm proud to say I've since gotten over my prejudices.
I've also started therapy to get over my dyslexia. I think I'm doing quite well. I've improved to the point of only messing up a small collection of words. Unfortunately for my ginger friends, they'll just have to wait. See? There I go again.
With crimson love and ginger affection, -Sad Blogger
