When some of my high school friends embraced right wing politics during or after college, I did not follow them, and scratched my head as to what led them down that path? When some of my high school friends embraced progressive, socialist, left wing or anarchistic ideologies in college or thereafter, I was busy raising a toddler and being the sole bread winner in my new family's household. I could relate to the empathy my left leaning friends had for the under-dog, the little guy, the disadvantaged, forgotten, and under-class of society, since I grew up fairly poor myself.
 |
| My maternal grandmother would get government cheese at the Senior Center. |
Just a few miles away, in Gary IN, most of the city was not in very good shape economically. The steel mills all began to close in the 1980s, and the tax revenues dried up in Gary, Easy Chicago, Hammond, and Whiting. Street lights, traffic signals, and general infrastructure broke down and didn't get repaired. The majority of Gary entered an economic malaise from which they've never really recovered. The majority of Gary was also African American. But what if the majority of Gary's citizens, instead of being African American, were caucasian and all had red hair? I know this might sound silly or absurd, but give me a minute or two to explain.
Since Memorial Day 2020, when George Floyd was publicly murdered by Minneapolis police and recorded by civilians as it happened, all 50 states in the US, and many countries around the world, have seen widespread public protests against racism and police brutality against black and brown people. What if George Floyd, instead of being a large man who was a former NCAA basketball playing African American, was a large red haired caucasian? And what if every black and brown person who have been beaten or killed or wrongly convicted by the legal system had red hair and white (probably freckled) skin?
Hold that thought in your head for a moment. Replace "black skin" with "red hair and white skin". You can certainly SEE that someone has red hair, up-close, or from far away. Many of them are originally from Scotland, Ireland, or Scandinavian countries, where the genes for red hair are not rare. Red haired folks are no different than brown haired, black haired, blond haired, or gray haired folks, but you can immediately see that they've got red hair. Take off a red haired person's hat, and there is no ambiguity that they are indeed red haired. Many red haired men often grow beards, which show off their red hair even more.
As I kept hearing "all lives matter", and "blue lives matter" and white folks call in to shows on the radio (NPR) say "you have to first acknowledge there's discrimination AGAINST white people, before we can talk about black lives matter" it began to become very clear to me. Many white people have a BIG problem with the word "black" because of the systemic racism within their narrow view of society in which they were raised and have been living their whole lives, racism that Most of them are not consciously aware that they are practicing. So imagine a world for a moment, where there were NO BLACK PEOPLE, whatsoever, and probably no brown people either, for this analogy to work and make sense for the white people who read it. Instead of African Americans being the most discriminated and disadvantaged folks in the United States, RED HAIRED folks took their place.
Think about that, for minute, especially if you're white.
Say that all red haired folks couldn't get VA loans when they left the military, because of the color of their hair. They couldn't live in nice neighborhoods, without the KKK burning crosses in their lawns, throwing bricks through their windows, and hanging nooses from their trees. Red haired folks were denied job interviews, jobs, home loans, entry into the best schools, entry into non-red-haired "christian" churches in the Southern United States. They were severely beaten and hospitalized when walking their girl friend home at 3am in Charleston by 5 blond and brown haired guys wearing College of Charleston shirts. Imagine that Red haired folks had been brought to the US in chains from Scotland and Ireland and Scandinavia and forced to work as slaves on cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations, mostly in the South, but some in the rest of the country as well. When red haired kids tried to enter segregated public schools in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi they had police dogs set on them, were fire hosed, and beaten, all because of the color of their hair.
What if red haired folks created better music, more meaningful and soulful and powerful lyrics and rhythms, that they called blues, jazz, gospel and many other genres that blond and brown and black haired artists appropriated, imitated, and played for blond and brown and black and gray haired crowds in bars and concert halls and churches, where red haired folks were not allowed to enter? What if blond and brown and black haired daughters liked red haired boys, but were forbidden to hang out with or date those red haired boys? What if the N word was replaced with the G word (ginger)? And one red haired person could call another red haired person the G word, but no one else was allowed to use it in conversation, in a tweet, on-air broadcasts, in social media, or anywhere else without repercussions?
What if, in the Fortune 500 companies, there were only 4 red haired CEOs, even though red haired folks comprised more than 10% of the US population? What if red haired folks were 2.5X more likely to die from Covid-19 infections than their blond, black, brown, and gray haired counterparts? Because of the systemic fear, structural racism, and discrimination against red haired folks, a large percentage of them worked in lower paying service professions, like security guard, bus driver, janitor, short haul truck driver, and health care assistants, and during periods of economic downturns, they were impacted disproportionately to their size in the general population? What if the relatively few economically successful red haired folks who were judges, US senators, plant managers, or PhD scholars were routinely hassled and scrutinized, delayed by police, security guards, TSA, and retail store loss prevention personnel? "Why is a red haired person like you driving this really nice car?"
If you were a police officer (city or county) in this all white society where red haired folks were routinely discriminated against, you might be fearful of those citizens with red hair. They have "fiery tempers" after all, and everyone knows "red haired women are trouble" while all non-red haired men know that many red haired women are "crazy". Broken tail light, failure to use a turn signal, "fitting the description" of a red haired suspect... all of these would be opportunities to pull over a red haired driver, interrogate them - often rudely and with excessive force - and take them in for further questioning when the red haired driver, who was minding their own business and usually did nothing wrong, began to get irritated that they're being hassled for no reason whatsoever... oh... wait... yeah, they have Red Hair. In the eyes of many of the blond, brown, black, and gray haired officers, most red haired folks "all look alike".
What if in Tulsa OK on Memorial Day 1921, the most prosperous part of the city, known as "Red Wall Street", 35 square blocks, was looted and then burnt down by non-red haired people, while Army Air Corp biplanes dropped petrol bombs on the district, with more than 400 red haired men, women, and children, massacred? (without a single prosecution, and with zero insurance claims paid) What if in Chicago Illinois, on the Lake Michigan lake-front beach in 1919, a red haired teenager swam over to the non-red-haired beach, across an imaginary line, that got him stoned to death by all the non-red swimmers? And then the non-red swimmers went on a rampage killing 150 red haired citizens, and burnt down 1.1 billion dollars worth of red-haired owned homes and businesses in Chicago? What if all red haired men were called "boy" or "uncle", instead of "mister" or "sir" when they were spoken to by someone with blond, brown, or black hair.
So if you personally have a problem with the phrase "Black Lives Matter", as I first did many years ago the first few times I heard it in my 40s, where I kept telling myself "no, all lives matter, not just black ones" ... then you really should stop for a moment, replace "Black" with "Red" and remember this context. Think about the analogy I make here, about a country where everyone is white (no black or brown people whatsoever), but the red haired citizens consistently the short end of the stick, a raw deal, a violent and forceful shove back down the ladder of success by all the other citizens who don't have red hair. Even if they have boot straps, the systematic barriers non-red society has repeatedly placed in their way have made it remarkably hard for the vast majority of red haired folks to succeed, prosper, and be on equal footing under the US Constitution, after the 13th Amendment was passed in December 1865, just 155 years ago.
If reading this has changed even one person's mind or opened their eyes to the reality that the majority of African Americans live in the United States are subject to just because of the color of their skin, then it was worth writing.
Note: I have many red haired friends, former class mates, colleagues, acquaintances and neighbors. All of whom are nice people. I hope such discrimination and anti-red-haired hatred is never focused upon them, as stated in this analogy. I was going to try "blue eyes" or "bald" or "left handed" but none of those aspects are instantly recognizable, from afar or by law enforcement officers, so I kept coming back to red hair in my mind.
