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A fan is sickened when a player is taunted because of appearance
Something came across my desk the other day that I hadn’t seen before. A fan was upset after attending a high school basketball game and witnessing a player for one team being mocked because of his/her appearance. Said player has red hair and attracted chants of “Ginger” from some in the opposing student section.
In e-mail correspondence, I told the fan I wasn’t aware of the term. Turns out it’s from the irreverent TV cartoon South Park. An episode in November 2005 indicated redheads were inferior. It spawned controversy and some redheaded-related violence. Then in November 2008, a Facebook page declaring “National Kick a Ginger Day” surfaced. The “day” was back this year and its message has apparently carried over in ensuing months.
The fan, sickened by the callous, bullying behavior he witnessed, wrote both schools and considered writing the OSAA. Someone from the offending school responded to the fan that it wouldn’t be allowed to happen again. In the note to me, the fan wrote: “I know we have had some problems with hate crimes which have been started by someone calling someone a Ginger. I really think (school) was very wrong for allowing this to happen. The chants of airball and stuff are part of the game, but chanting hate stuff is wrong.”
At first, I thought, how serious could this be? Then I checked out the Web and got a better idea. I’ve got to admit, I’m not a big fan of bullying and, judging by some of the cases I found, this clearly is a form of it. The fan just wanted to be heard, wanted to get the word out in hopes of preventing future incidents. Maybe this will help.