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Mercnbeth -> RE: Red hair (3/28/2008 6:14:44 AM)
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Ever heard the term “redheaded step-child” used in a positive association? “Ill beat you like a redheaded stepchild”. This phrase was born out of the American south and implies the status of illegitimate offspring with a white master.
One of our favorite shows, South Park, included in their episode about “Gingers” the stereotypes that red-headed kids are just plain weird and “without souls”.
At St. Paul’s cathedral in London, figurines tell the story of the fall in the Garden of Eden. Adam points one hand to the forbidden fruit and the other to a golden haired Eve. Then the arch angel drives them from the garden. Adam with his fig leaf loops his arm around Eve who is now cowering and sporting a main of long red hair.
Similarly in the paintings of the Sistine Chapel in 1874, Michelangelo’s Temptation depicts a brown haired Eve being handed a red apple by a red headed bare breasted serpent woman (Satan manifested as woman of course carries red hair). In the adjacent fresco Eve is thrown out of the garden with a shameful face and a twist of red hair.
Eves’ red hair is seen as the stain of sin like the original scarlet letter. Later her son, Cain, will bare the red hair and also a fall from grace.
Belief that redheads are witches is a folk belief in Germanic culture. From 1483-1784 thousands of suspected witches were nearly always stripped and searched for “marks of the devil”. These included any “abnormality” such as freckles, moles, warts, and birthmarks. Red hair was certainly considered an abnormality. Considering the freckle factor for redheads this was a deadly and shocking horror. Somewhere around 45,000 women were tortured and murdered usually by burning at the stake or by drowning.
In central Africa’s Cameroon redheaded albinos, called Nguenguerous, are believed also to come by this color by menstrual intercourse. The UN and other world organizations have studied and advocated for their rights as there have been allegations of the ritual murders in some regions of Africa.
Personally, this slave has met people who ranged from wanting to have nothing to do with her, BASED on her hair color and the belief of negative stereotypes associated with it to folks who just wanted to get down her pants to see if it was “true what they say about redheads, y’know, red-on-the-head-fire-in-the-hole” to folks with a serial redhead FETISH.
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