Ranga voted Buzz Word of 2008 !

Ranga has been voted Buzz Word of 2008, according to Australian media.
Red Power rules OK!

There's something I want to set straight about this Ranga biz though. We redheads are so used to colourist nicknames, from very babyhood, that it's all water off a duck's back as far as most of us are concerned. There might be a few who are insulted, (diddums!), though personally I think that any redhead who couldn't stand epithets would be in a bad way by the time they're adults. I think Ranga in particular is quite a fun term, especially the way it came to light on Summer Heights High; it's just a relatively small proportion of other, non-rh people who do get really unpleasant about us, and the form their unpleasantness takes, their real nastiness, always surprises me when it rears its very ugly (non-red) head. As if we really were a race apart! We're very ordinary except for our colouring, stereotypes to the contrary are crap, and if we do really have hot tempers it's no wonder, because of all the needling over the years by bigots.

Not that colour discrimination focussing on redheads is unusual, mind: on the very contrary, EVERYBODY including redheads discriminates with relation to us. But the form it usually takes is not like discrimination against black people or Asians, for example: rather it's just that whatever redheads do, even if its just sitting on our hands, we are noticed, not necessarily nor usually deliberately hurtfully, just noticed, marked as it were, just by reason of our noticeability. Example: there you are with your mousy cobbers, innocently chucking rocks through greenhouse windows, out comes the farmer, you all run away, what does the farmer tell the cops? Yeah right, "I didn't recognise any of 'em Constable, but . . . " You know what's coming eh!
And that form of discrimination means that redheads are saddled with living a higher level of hype, for ill or good, all our lives. It can actually be advantageous in some situations: e.g., a Ranga footballer, if he's good, will certainly come to everyone's notice, but if he is having a bad day he will be rubbished mercilessly. You can't get away with nothin' as a redhead, but it can be a positive at times.

But here's the kicker: I've never met a redhead who wanted to change his/her hair colour, but I've seen half a million non-rh people who have dyed their hair red, what does that tell you?

I remember reading many years ago of a survey in the USA which claimed that of all healthy people, (i.e., not counting people who are suffering from something horrible and terminal), the identifiable group with the highest rate of suicide was, yep, redheads. Worse still, we led the field in 4 other major categories: rate of domestic violence, imprisonment, alcoholism, and institutionalized mental illness.

WHY? We're just the same as anyone else, except for getting noticed all the time!

Anyway I'm a Ranga, and proud to be, and Yes I discriminate concerning redheads too, but I must say in my case it's with love and affection, not the dismaying hatred of the few bigots.