Manufacturing prejudice

As someone from the southern US, I was asked (jokingly) about whether or not I was a racist when I went north for college. At first I was repulsed by the question, until I noticed that I automatically got more nervous when passing a black person on the street at night. I am going to college in Cleveland, and so I have some actual reason for this since every mugger I've seen for five years in incident reports has been black. My problem (though I only started defining it this way within the past few months of reading LW) is that I was weighting race far too strongly in my everyday interactions.

After I realized I was doing this, I decided to switch my threat assessment style to a more clothing-based approach, with some success. Everyday interactions with other races than my native white within the university also felt easier and less forced. Taking an implicit association test helped me to realize that I was racist to some degree despite my intense repulsion to the idea. I now encourage everyone to examine their thought process for racism, especially if they would feel dismay if someone accused them of racism.

My experience of this, as a ginger person born in Ireland, is that the prejudice is consciously ironic, and in general harmless, has nevertheless conditioned people in the UK to view red-hair as low-status. The result is that people who probably would have been bullied anyway have their hair color picked on if it's red. I've also overheard completely un-ironic statements from women, generally of the more superficially status loving sort, that they would never go out with a red haired man. So while the acid throwing is probably anomalous, the point about people's failure to compartmentalize isn't. The difference in germany is massive. Which is rather gratifying.

Although I have to give some consideration to the possibility that the complexion that comes packaged with my hair color is just genuinely unattractive. People in Colombia thought I was ill.

The term 'ginger' didn't become 'mainstream' just because of that South Park episode, I was being shot at, having acid thrown over me, stabbed, headbutted, punched, spat on, kicked, dehumanised, singled out, socially excluded, avoided, belittled, character assassinated etc since I can remember and to be fair I found that treatment was at its peak years before that South Park episode was even thought up.

Noticing my confusion here, I live in England and have never observed this level of prejudice. The kicking and punching I can just about believe, the acid is very implausible.

yes, we hate not having outgroups because they serve so well to help reassure us in our ingroup values.

I feel like the asymmetry in experience between red-haired and non-red-haired is important here.

Like, if you don't have red hair, joking about being hostile towards red haired people feels entirely innocuous. Even mild assault isn't that big of a deal (imagine playfully kicking someone in the shins). You're just joking, right?

If you do have red hair being told that you're subhuman or being assaulted because of your hair color doesn't feel nearly as inconsequential.

Spreading the meme feels harmless to the meme-spreaders, but the meme itself feels harmful to the victims.

Matches my experience. Sucks.

I think the reason that it's considered funny is that, while many consider racists stupid, it is almost unbelievably silly to think of someone as sub-human because of their hair color. It is true that I haven't actually experienced prejudice of this kind but many of my red-haired friends routinely make ginger related jokes. At least in my circles, racism against red-haired people is entirely ironic.
It might be worth noting that we were first exposed to anti-ginger feelings though humor, not from any legitimately racist source.

Is there something about the ginger thing specifically that makes you think it's ironic or manufactured? Cartman on south park is very antisocial and racist in a classic sense. A recurring theme is his hatred of blacks, jews, women, gays...

Many Irish people have red hair. It's possible this is just the usual kind of racism.

As far as I can tell, short jokes became less prevalent after Randy Newman's "Short People" had been around for a while. Assuming I saw an actual change and that the song had something to do with it, this still might not be a good guide to action-- Newman might be smarter about such things than the average satirist.

Wow. I suddenly understand the background of this song by Tim Minchin much better.

Are humans capable of, collectively, keeping real and humorous/ironic racism separate? No, they are not. What South Park "kicked" off as an ironic commentary on racism is becoming actual racism.

See also Truffaut's famous dictum that there's no such thing as a true anti-war film (obligatory TVtropes warning).

I have lived in England for thirty years, and previously lived in Scotland, and I have never, ever, encountered anything resembling even slightly the account on that Facebook page. In fact, apart from the copycat incidents linked to by the OP, I have never heard of such things happening on account of ginger hair anywhere in the world.

I don't believe it.

There is apparently some basis for the hormone oxytocin increasing distrust of outsiders, including among racial lines. I've posted some of the results I found below:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/01/11/no-love-for-outsiders-oxytocin-boosts-favouritism-towards-our-own-ethnic-or-cultural-group/

http://www.livescience.com/6570-love-hormone-lead-war.html

This link requires you to have journal access: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5984/1343.1.short

I think it's likely that it's humorous in a similar way to the kind of jokes you can hear on Comedy Central where a comedian is telling jokes about white stereotypes. If you're inside a well respected group, (And I think we consider red haired people to be an insider of the well respected group in the U.S.) and you are hearing jokes about your own flaws, it is amusing,because it isn't really a threat. On the other hand, if you actually suffer through prejudice as a result of your traits, hearing jokes about yourself from an outsider is not funny, because it feels like they are flaunting their superiority over you.

For public postings on the web specifically, I suppose you would want to consider that your audience is everyone. So some of the Red haired people will see it and go "Red haired Jokes! It's a classic! Yes I do drink like a fish!" and some of them will go "More stupid Red haired jokes? Just what I need, another reminder of getting tripped on Tuesday and having it blamed on my alcoholism. I don't even drink." depending on whether they experience predjudice or not.

A much older citation than the South Park episode:

Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin...

;)

FWIW, that prejudice also existed in 19th-century Sicily.

I have a hard time believing that the linked articles demonstrate that humans are, collectively, unable to keep real and ironic racism separate. It seems more likely, to me, based on my experience with other people, that these are some isolated incidents and if it wasn't South Park, these people would latch on to anything and do something stupid.

I'd welcome some studies or something a little less anecdotal to change my mind.

All other points notwithstanding...regarding the "real thing" video you linked:

After watching, due to his erratic behavior and overstatement of his point, I began to rather strongly suspect that you either fell victim to an instance of Poe's law, or didn't watch the whole video. I went and found his youtube channel, "CopperCab" on youtube. His name is supposedly Michael Copper, obviously a pseudonym (his name actually containing the word "Copper" would be too fitting)

From seeing his other videos, I'm now certain that the collegehumor thing you linked actually is a parody of some sort, and not the real thing.

With so many comments, I'm rather surprised no one caught it...did people not watch the whole thing?

"Is combating racism a game of whack-a-mole, in which society invents new prejudices to replace the ones being taken away?" I didn't see any provided evidence/argument for causality.

One clue that you're going too far in your ironic humor is when you start finding the real thing funny.

I'm not actually sure that's the "real thing", at least in the sense you appear to mean it. His tone, as well as this more explicitly humourous video suggest that it's all at least a little tongue-in-cheek, although that certainly doesn't mean his message is irrelevant.

Anyway, I appreciate this post; I'll try and comment with something a little more cogent when I've got more time.